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ON 

ALCOHOL 



A uOURSE OF SIX CANTOR LECTURES DELIVERED 
BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF ARTS. 



BENJAMIN W. RICHARDSON, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., 

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, 
AND HONORARY PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND. 



EDITED WITH NOTES 



T. S. LAMBERT, M.D., A.M., LL.D., 

Author of "Physiology, Anatomy and Hygiene?" 1 "Biometry," "New Scheme of 

Functions," " Lectures upon the Constitution of Alcohol, its Physiological 

and Pathological Effects upon the Human Organs,'''' etc., etc. 



J° r 




JMk 



NEW YORK: 
UNITED STATES PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

207 East Twelfth Street. 

FOR SALE WHOLESALE AND RETAIL AT ALL BOOKSTORES, AND AT 

THE OFFICE OF *' THE LIVING- ISSUE," 210 EIGHTH AVE. 



,«v> 






Copyright secured by the 

UNITED STATES PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

1876. 



John F. Trow & Son, 
Printers and Bookbinders, 
205-213 East xzth St., 

NEW YORK. 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE PAGE 

I. On Alcohol, in Relation to some of its Varied Ser- 
vices to Mankind ...... 1 

II. The Alcohol Group of Organic Bodies. — Actions of 

different Alcohols . . . . 21 

. III. The Influence of Common or Ethylic Alcohol on 
Animal Life. — The Primary Physiological Action 
of Alcohol 40 

IV. The Position of Alcohol as a Food. — Effects of Alco- 
hol on the Animal Temperature. — Hygienic Les- 
sons • . . . . . . . . 58 

V. The Secondary Action of Alcohol on the Animal 
Functions, and on the Physical Deteriorations of 
Structure incident to its excessive Use . . 78 

VI. Physical Deteriorations from Alcohol {continued). — 
Influence of Alcohol on the Vital Organs. — Mental 
Phenomena induced by its Use. — Summary . 97 

Appendix .121 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

BY THE EDITOK. 

When asked to perform the very light task required of 
me, I assented with the greatest alacrity. Nothing could 
have pleased me more than to hear that a cheap edition of 
Dr. Richardson's " Cantor Lectures upon Alcohol " is to be 
issued. To be invited to aid therein, and to be thus consid- 
ered his compeer and coadjutor in the great work of extin- 
guishing the use of alcohol- among men, I esteemed as the 
highest compliment of my life. Dr. Richardson is one of 
the few scientific men — one of the very, very few medical 
men who have the facility of attractively and plainly ex- 
pressing their ideas. In fact, there are few men on either 
side of the water who have so clear an idea of what they 
wish to say. Probably no other medical man has so fasci- 
nating a style to the attracted reader, except it may be Dr. 
Maudsley, whose style, however, is as different from that 
of Dr. Richardson as the usual topics of their thoughts are 
diverse. Dr. Richardson is well known to his professional 
brethren of both hemispheres as an eminent and practical 
experimenter, who has greatly added to the stores of knowl- 
edge adapted to the use of the practitioner. His writings 
have been very numerous, mostly for the journals. His 
writings are always full of practical utility to those for 
whom they are written, and are expressed in a style that is 
sure to make them attractive. 

One great charm, it appears to me, that spreads itself 
through whatever he writes, arises from the fact, as these 
lectures abundantly testify, that Dr. Richardson is a thor- 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



ough-going humanitarian, saturated with an implicit faith in 
the progress of mankind, and who loves beyond all things 
to help on the development of that millennium already dawn- 
ing over the earth, and which ere long shall bless all men 
with the effulgence of its meridian splendor. " Utopia," 
says Dr. Richardson, in his admirable paper upon the City 
of Hygeia, a is only another name for time." He believes 
in sowing the scientific seed broadcast, which shall in u time " 
develop into the grand harvest. As I read his attractive, 
encouraging words, his lessons of deep scientific truth, so 
simply and so plainly expressed and illustrated, giving the 
thoughtless or ignorant the prophetic warning of his experi- 
ence and deductions, kindly, yet with the decision appropri- 
ate to their serious and stern truth ; when I feel the immense 
good which must certainly result from the publication of 
these lectures, I feel, as I never have towards any other man, 
as if I wished to kiss his hand in token of my admiration 
of the skill with which it has executed the noble behest of 
the head which directed, and of the heart which inspired 
that execution. The lectures are admirable, not merely for 
their disquisition of alcohol and its effects, but they are 
charming also on account of the exceedingly interesting and 
valuable presentation of physiological knowledge which is 
observable in several of them. In fact, nowhere in profes- 
sional or in popular physiological literature, so far as I know, 
can there be found such graphic yet such clear views of pro- 
found physiological truths as are found herein ; and, as I 
read them, I cannot help constantly admiring the happy 
manner in which, multum in parvo, Dr. Richardson illumi- 
nates his physiological topics. 

In no case has it been necessary to correct the ideas, and 
only in a few instances has it been necessary to vary the 
phraseology. He would doubtless have changed some words 
in a second edition. In some cases the expression he uses 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. ix 

has a different local usage in England from that which is 
common here. He uses the expression, Cc a spill of paper," 
which has been allowed to stand, since its definition can be 
found in Webster, and to most Americans it will be a new 
word. Dr. Richardson uses what is called the (i new chem- 
istry," as will be noticed by the number of " equivalents " 
which he mentions as components of water, alcohol, etc., etc. 
He mentions that water is constituted of two equivalents of 
hydrogen to one of oxygen, expressed H 2 0. The " old 
chemistry " said water is constituted of one equivalent each 
of hydrogen and oxygen, expressed HO. In the " new " 
and " old " the amount of each in a pint of water is precisely 
the same ; but the mode of expression and the theory of the 
combinations is different. It is probable that neither is 
correct. In some respects the " new," and in others the 
" old," mode is more satisfactory. 

In conclusion, it appears to be proper to draw attention 
to " Diseases of Life," a recent work by Dr. Eichardson, 
reprinted in this country. It treats quite fully upon the 
effects of tobacco, of alcohol, and briefly and forcibly upon 
licentiousness, and upon many other topics most admirably. 
It is unfortunate that the American publishers did not see 
it to be for their advantage to produce that book in a form 
which could have been profitably sold for one dollar. This 
would have carried it into every household in the land, and 
in every one of them it should be read. It is as "full of 
meat as an egg.^ It can be comprehended by every ordinary 
reader. It is much more plain and comprehensible than 
even these lectures. It should be said of these that some of 
them require a little knowledge of chemistry ; for example, 
the second, and perhaps the last third of the first. But let 
not the reader be discouraged by them ; he will find the 
third lecture easier to understand, while the fourth, fifth, 
and sixth will step by step become not merely more easily 



1NTR OB TIC TOR Y NO TE. 



comprehended, but more deeply interesting, the climax of 
the lectures being concentrated in the very last paragraph, 
which is worthy to be written in gold and set in a picture 
of silver. 

May I not embrace this opportunity to urge upon all the 
readers hereof to learn the simple rudimentary elements of 
chemistry, so that they may be able, not only to read all 
such works as this with ease and pleasure, but also be able 
practically to comprehend all the chemistry of common life ? 
Everything has somewhat of chemistry in its constitution or 
action. It is not difficult for any one to learn so much as is 
necessary. Get a child's chemistry, the most elementary 
possible, and read it; then take one a little higher ; then an- 
other a little higher. One hour's reading in this way per day 
for a year will advance any one so much in chemistry that 
for all the rest of his life he will walk with new eyes in a 
new world — and greatly, also, to his pecuniary profit. 

T. S. LAMBERT. 

New Yoke City, Nov. 20, 1876. 



PEEFACE 

[BY DR. RICHARDSON.] 



The course of Cantor Lectures on Alcohol here published, 
were prepared at the request of the Council of the Society 
of Arts, and delivered before that Society in the months of 
November, December, January, and February last. 

1 do not remember to have delivered any Lectures that 
have attracted so much earnest public attention, and in pub- 
lishing them in this cheap form I am responding to a request 
too genera] to admit of hesitation or delay on my part. 
With the exception of the transference of the tabular mat- 
ter into an Appendix, the introduction of a few minor and 
verbal corrections, and the addition of a page of learned and 
interesting passages kindly communicated* to me by Mr. 
Stanford, M.A., F.R.S., the Lectures are published as they 
were spoken. 

In this form I found them favorably received by the large 
audiences who honored me with their attention, and I am, 
therefore, led to hope for them equal favor with the larger 
public to whom they are now addressed. 

It remains for me to add, that though I have spoken out 
freely the lessons which I have learned from nature, no 
pledge binds me, and no society banded to propagate partic- 
ular views and tenets claims my allegiance. I stand forth 
simply as an interpreter of natural fact and law. 

12 Hinde Stbeet, W. 
May 1st, 1875. 



PUBLISHEKS' NOTICE. 



Two or three editions of Dr. Richardson's " Cantor Lec- 
tures upon Alcohol " have been presented to the American 
public. Although they are worth, to any reader, many 
times the cost of the dearest copies, yet, to insure their more 
universal perusal, it has been thought best to bring out an 
edition against which the price cannot be an objection. The 
deep interest felt at the present time in the temperance cause, 
and the growing interest manifested in the plain, substantial, 
scientific treatment of every subject, has induced the belief 
that an arrangement for so large an edition that its price 
may be put at the minimum will be sustained. To insure the 
perfection and the reliability of this edition, the aid of a 
gentleman well known by the public to be especially quali- 
fied for the purpose has been obtained. It is now submitted 
with the hope that it will be read by such a multitude of 
persons as to call for still larger editions than even those 
now contemplated. 

U. S. PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

205 East 12th st. y JV. Y. City. 



ON ALCOHOL. 



CANTOR LECTURES. 



LECTURE I. 

ON ALCOHOL, IN RELATION TO SOME OF ITS VARIED 
SERVICES TO MANKIND. 

A few weeks since we had before us an interesting national 
event. It was that of an archbishop and a minister of the 
Crown speaking almost at the same time, on one of the most 
important subjects of the day, viz., the part performed by 
alcohol on the national stage as it is set forth and played 
upon at this period of our history. The distinguished pre- 
late took naturally for his view of the subject the moral 
influence of alcohol, and from this point denounced alcohol, 
in whatever form it presents itself for human consumption, 
in terms as eloquent as they were persuasive and forcible. 
The statesman took for his view of the subject the financial 
influence of alcohol; he gave a clear and by no means ex- 
aggerated estimate of the importance of an agent which, in 
these kingdoms, rests on an invested capital of not less than 
one hundred and seventeen millions of money ; and submit- 
ted, in conclusive terms, an argument, which, contrasted 
with that of the prelate, means that an agent so commercially 
potential cannot be materially interfered with in the present 
stage of our civilization, whatever may be the result of its 
influence on the community for good or for evil. 

To the utterances of the church and of the legislative 
1 



ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



chamber we are accustomed to listen with such regard, that 
when any representative of either body speaks, we turn an 
ear almost automatically, and accept what is said as com- 
manding respect, even though we dissent from the opinions 
that are expressed. No one therefore who stands out of 
these spheres can hope to obtain a hearing extended so far 
and wide, and equally authoritative. 

And yet there is scope for honest utterance on another 
side of the alcohol question. The prelate and the legislator 
can hardly have more intimate conversance with the influ- 
ence of alcohol than the . physician and the man of science. 
To the moral view of the question and to the legislative may 
well therefore be added the physical, and it is to this I shall 
try to direct public attention in these discourses, conscious, 
fully, of the disadvantages under which I should labor were 
it not for the countenance and support I shall hope to re- 
ceive from you. 

The strain running through all these lectures, in however 
diverse a manner the subject matter of them may be pursued, 
will then be simply this : Of what physical value has alcohol 
been to man ; of what value is it to man ? We know it is 
of no value to any other animal, and thus we limit our in- 
quiry at once to the highest order of the animate series of 
natural development, or of natural creation. 

In the studies that are in this sense to be undertaken, I 
will not fail to remember the injunction placed upon me to 
speak simply and plainly ; not to offend pride of learning by 
too great simplicity of statement, nor yet to embarrass hu- 
mility by a display of technical language and of the abstruse 
technical reasoning, for which the subject in, hand affords so 
much opportunity. As far as possible I will strive to be 
plainness itself, and that 3 not only in the mode of expression, 
but in the matter of it. 

I shall propose in this description to glance first at the 
value of alcohol to man in a general sense ; that is to say, its 
value as an agent useful for other purposes than as a fluid 
to be imbibed. From this I shall be naturally led to con- 
sider its action, physically, on man, and its use as a fluid 
consumed with food, and, according to common acceptation, 
consumed as a food. Lastly, I shall be brought to treat 



L] THE TERM "ALCOHOL" 3 

upon its secondary action on the vital functions, i.e., on the 
deteriorations of structure and derangements of function, 
which may follow its use. 

THE TERM " ALCOHOL." 

The first employment of the word alcohol is obscurely 
recorded. Bartholomew Parr, one of the most learned of 
our scientific classics, taking the usual derivation of the 
word as from the Arabic A.l-ka~hol, a subtile essence, says 
it was originally employed to designate an impalpable powder, 
used by the Eastern women to tinge the hair and the mar- 
gins of the eyelids. As this powder, viz., au ore of lead, 
was impalpable, the same name was given to other subtile 
powders, and then to the spirit of wine exalted to its highest 
purity and perfection. 

The earliest systematic and truly scientific use of the term 
that I can discover is in Nicholas Lemert's ' Course of 
Chemistry, ' published in 1698. There the word is used as 
a verb, " to alcoholize," and the definition of this is said to 
be " to reduce to alcohol, as when a mixture is beaten into an 
impalpable powder." The word, says Lemert, is also used 
to express a very fine spirit ; " thus the spirit of wine well 
rectified is called the alcohol of wine." 

The word employed in this sense merely tells us of a re- 
fined fluid substance obtained by a subtile process of separa- 
tion from a grosser substance. But it was not applied to 
the special fluid now under our consideration until long after 
that fluid had actually been separated. Then it was used 
as a supplementary term to the earlier terms, Vinum adus- 
tum, Vinum ardens. Spiritus vini, Spiritus ardens, by which 
a spirit obtained from the grosser fluid, by the action of fire, 
was known and described. 

FERMENTATION OF WINE. 

"We must now go back to a much earlier study, viz., to 
the study of the primitive fluid, from which the subtile spirit 
was derived. In the history of the production of alcohol 
we gather, in fact, the use of two of the most prominent 
words of our modern language : fermentation and distilla- 



ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



tion. They each mark distinct progressive epochs in natural 
science. 

The term fermentation brings us in contact with the 
primitive fluid. It leads us to ask how, from the vegetable 
fvorld, by change or mutation of its matter, a new product 
was evolved ? The origin of this procedure is so old we 
have no possible means of tracing it. Before ever the word 
chemistry, or the science which that word implies, was 
dreamed of, this process of obtaining the crude liquor, from 
which alcohol was ultimately extracted, was in active opera- 
tion. By some accidental discovery it had been started by 
human hands, and the act of first lighting and reproducing 
fire was hardly a less wonderful development of the higher 
faculties resident in man, than was this discovery. The 
operation originally was, we may presume, very simple. As 
there is a spontaneity in nature to produce fire, for in- 
stance, when a metal like iron strikes a stone, so there is a 
spontaneity of fermentation in vegetable matter — especially 
in the juices of fresh ripe fruits in warm weather — which 
fact being observed, first, from the motion induced in the 
fluids, and secondly from the crude products that were left, 
would lead naturally to the contemplation of the steps of the 
process, to its easy, artificial, and more perfect development, 
to a method of separating and purifying the products, and 
afterwards of tasting and using them. 

The products of fermenting fruits were limited to four : 
an active air which escapes freely ; a f mth or yeast which 
floats above as a crust ; a heavy mass or lees which sinks to 
the bottom ; and a fluid which remains apart. These por- 
tions, each readily separable, indeed, separable of them- 
selves, were soon understood in respect of their virtues. 
That invisible air, which escapes so actively, is a deadly 
vapor or miasm ; that froth, unpleasant to the taste, is an 
active promoter of the motion that springs from the fruit ; 
those lees are like sediment from muddy water, excremen- 
titious, to be cast away ; but that remaining subtile fluid is 
wine. 

The discovery is an epoch surpassed by none other in the 
history of one portion of mankind. The early dawning 
civilizations show their wonder at it in their mythology ; 



I.] FERMENT A TWIST. 5 

Egypt claims the invention for her god Osiris, Greece for 
Bacchus, and Rome for Saturn. The Greeks, most ambi- 
tious to be connected with the origin, assert that the very 
name belongs to them, for the drink was first discovered in 
^Etolia by Orestheus, the son of Deucalion, whose grandson, 
Oeneus, was so called from Oinos, which was the old name 
of the vine. Or else the discovery was by Oeneus himself, 
who first pressed the rich grapes. Thus Oinos — hoinon — 
winum — wine. Then by these nations the praises of wine 
and of the wine gods, one and all, were sung into the later 
times. The first of the Roman poets, excited to his labor 
by Maecenas, the friend of Augustus, who would that the 
vineyards should flourish, is thus prompted to invoke Bac- 
chus, under the name of Pater Lenseus — 

u Hither, oh, Lenasus — Father Lenaeus, come. 
By thee with heavy viny harvest crowned, 
The pasture nourishes. In the full vats 
The vintage foams. 

Hither Lenasus, Father Lenaeus come, 
And, with thy buskins off, in the new wine, 
Stain thou thy naked legs even with me." 

And thus on until our own era, in which, — alas for the 
mutability of even god-like virtues ! — under the title of 
'The Worship of Bacchus,' our veteran artist, George 
Cruikshank, has turned the praises of his brother artist, 
Virgil, into scorn, and has transformed Pater Lenaeus, the 
wine giver, into the destroyer of every civilization over 
which he has become enthroned. 

It is worthy here of special remark that the invention of 
wine was local on the planet, and that it came from some 
centre of the ancient world lying near to those points from 
whence our modern civilization took its rise. Since when 
that civilization concentrated itself into bands or armies, or 
navies, for the purpose of discovering new portions of the 
earth, where other savage nations, as they are called, dwell, 
it found the wine god, the wine cup, and the wine equally 
unknown. A good three-quarters of the old world knew no 
more of wine than of the people who invented it, until they 
were taught to know it — then they learned about it fast 
enough. 



6 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

The practice of exciting fermentation and of obtaining 
the coveted fermented liquor once known, the knowledge was 
extended, until from varied vegetable substances wine became 
a product extracted by an art that was successful, however 
rude. The discovery of the ferment, that is to say of the 
body that would produce fermentation, was sufficient to set 
in mutation or intestine motion a whole series of fermentable 
vegetable substances, and to extend the manufacture of 
various vinous fluids to an unlimited degree. From the 
expressed juice of the grape the transition was easy to other 
juicy fruits, such as the mulberry, the apple, the pear, the 
peach; from these again to those juices which exude from 
trees, as from the Eastern palni-tree ; and from these again to 
such similar looking substances as manna and honey. From 
fruits, moreover, it was an easy transition to seeds, and from 
seeds that were soft and succulent to seeds that were hard 
and of the character of what we now call grain. 

From all these varied sources of fermentable substances 
there was produced for ages the fluid containing the basis 
of alcohol. Its most common name was wine, though the 
term was modified by adjective additions signifying some- 
times its color, sometimes the place where it was made or 
marketed. Thus were introduced the white and red wines, 
the Yino Tinto and the golden unctuous Vino Greco. Even 
after the discovery (of which I shall soon again speak) of the 
existence of a distinct essence or spirit in wine, the original 
fluid held pre-eminence over all other strong drinks, and in 
the early and middle stages of civilization in Europe the 
number of wines that were used exceeded anything we now 
have in common use. 

As a matter of some historical interest, it is worth a 
moment or two to touch on the special qualities of a few of 
those vinous drinks. 

Certain of the ancient Roman wines were home wines. 
The Falernian, one of these, was, it is believed, something 
like our modern Madeira, and was not commonly used 
until it was ten years old. After it was twenty years old 
it affected the body unfavorably, causing headache. This 
was the experience of Galen. 

Other wines were foreign. Chian, also called the Ariusian, 



I. ] FERMENT A TION. 



of which there were three varieties — austere, sweet, and in- 
termediate — and the Lesbian, considered to be a diuretic, 
were of this kind. 

Some wines were named after their color, as white, dark, 
and red. The white were thought to be the thinnest and 
least heating ; the dark- colored and sweet the most nourish- 
ing ; the red the most heating. 

Some, again, were named after qualities, of age, and the 
like: as old (Vetus); new (Novum); of the present year 
(Hornum) ; of three years (Trimum) ; mellow (Molle, Lene, 
Vetustate edentulum) ; rough (Asperum) ; pure (Merum) ; 
strong (Fortius). 

Certain wines, named Myndian, Halicarnassian, Rhodian, 
and Coan, were made with salt water. They were considered 
not to be intoxicating, but to promote digestion. 

Two wines, Cnidian and Adrian, were also medicinal 
wines. The first, it was believed, engendered blood and was 
at the same time a laxative ; the second was diaphoretic. 

Mustum was a term applied to wine newly made, or the 
fresh juice of the grape. Protropum was the juice which 
runs from the grapes without pressing. Mulsum was a mix- 
ture of wine and honey. Sapa was Mustum boiled down to 
a third. Defrutum was Mustum reduced to half, and Care- 
num was the same reduced to a third. 

Passum was a sweet wine, prepared from grapes that had 
been dried in the sun. Passum creticum, also a sweet wine, 
is believed to have been the same as the wine which our 
own forefathers called Malmsey ; the wine in which the 
Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward the Fourth, elected to 
be drowned. 

A wine called Murrhina, has a curious history. The 
Greeks had a wine of this kind, which consisted of pure wine 
perfumed with odorous substances. The Romans had a wine 
similarly named, which is supposed to have been wine min- 
gled with myrrh. It was administered to those who were 
about to suffer torture, in order to intoxicate them and to 
remove the sense of suffering. 

The ancient wines retained their place probably until the 
end of the Middle Ages, but we have no reliable evidence 
bearing upon this point, if we except an occasional reference 



8 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

by some poet or physician to the subject of wine. "Very 
slowly the names, rather than the wines, changed generally. 
The Roman conqueror who built his villa on our islands, and 
fitted it with so much taste and means of luxury, added to it 
his wine-cellar, in the manner he had been instructed by his 
forefathers, and from it took out his red and white and old 
wine, as we do now ; boasting possibly of the vintage from 
which it was grown, and eloquent as to its age and perfect 
ripeness. If he had no old port, he had old Falernian or 
Passum; his rough and his sweet, his light and his heavy 
wines, the same as our connoisseur of to-day. But, perhaps, 
he knew a great deal more, in the way of fact about the 
vintages, than his modern follower. 

How the wines changed in name through the centuries 
will be gathered from the lists of the wines of Europe in use 
in the last century, collected by the distinguished chemist 
Neumann. 

Some of the wines mediaeval and later derive additional 
names from peculiarities in themselves. Sec, from which we 
derive the name of the wine Sack, on which Sir John Falstaff 
so keenly enjoyed himself, means dry ; the wine being made 
from half dried grapes. Malmsey was called by the Italians, 
a Manna alia bocca e balsamo a] cervello " — " Manna to the 
mouth and balsam to the brain." 

From the chemist of last century, Neumann, who has col- 
lected for us such a long list of wines, we are supplied with 
a very instructive table of analyses showing the amount of 
spirit present in the different specimens. The wines he an- 
alyzed are tabulated in alphabetical order. I believe his to 
be the first true chemical analyses that were ever made, on an 
extensive and comparative scale, of different wines, and if 
they indicate all the spirit in the wines named, it is clear that 
the amount of spirit in them was exceedingly small, when 
compared with what is present in the wines of the present 
day. Malmsey, the strongest of them, contained but about 
twelve per cent, of spirit, and sack a little more than half 
that amount. Falstaff might readily drink at a draught a 
pint of sack that contained rather less than seven and a half 
per cent, of spirit. 



I] BEER. 



BEER. 

The only other diluted rival of wine obtained by fermen- 
tation was the liquid derived from corn. Tradition, active 
again in giving celestial origin to strong drinks, has assigned 
the introduction of the art of making this product first to 
Osiris, the divinity of Egypt, and afterwards to the goddess 
Ceres. The fluid thus produced, became, in Saxon language, 
known as beer, bere, from barley, or perhaps from the He- 
brew, 6ar, corn. Tacitus calls it Zythum. The Egyptians, 
it is said, made it first for the common folk that they too 
might receive the gift of Osiris. In its original state beer 
was what we would now call the sweet fluid or wort fresh 
from the vat, and untinctured with any additional substance. 
So it continued probably until the ninth century, when it 
began to be treated with the lupulus, or hop. The first 
mention of this plant is made by an Arabian, named Mesue, 
of about the year 850, but he does not refer to it in relation 
to beer. The hop not only flavored but tended to preserve 
the beer, and in a few centuries it became of general use. 
In the reign of Henry the Sixth the use of hops was for a 
time forbidden, on the ground that they spoiled the beer 
and rendered it dangerous. An order prohibiting hops and 
sulphur for beer was also made in the reign of Henry the 
Eighth. But the hops at last won their way. It is worthy 
of notice that Neumann, who analyzed the beers of last 
century, as well as the wines, found that the beers contained 
an amount of spirit varying from 5 per cent, in the weakest, 
to 10.90 per cent, in the strongest kinds. The malt liquors 
of the last century were, it appears from this, of much the 
same strength as those of the present. 

Thus in the history of alcohol the first step of discovery 
was that of its production from vegetable matter by the pro- 
cess of fermentation. As so produced it was a mixture of 
that which we now call pure spirit, or alcohol, with water, 
and with small quantities of other extraneous substances of 
minor moment. 

On the nature of the fermentative change by which the 
juice of the fruit, or the exuded fluid of the plant or tree, 
or the seed or the sweet sugar, is transformed into the new 
1* 



10 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

product, speculation has been rife for a hundred years at 
least. In this day the atomic constitution of water, of alco- 
hol, and of the substances which yield alcohol are known, 
and the atomic change of constitution that takes place is 
known ; but the reason of the process is, according to my 
judgment, as little understood as it was when the discussion 
began. Probably, indeed, the latest theories that have been 
advanced are rather a retrogression, by a line of learned 
subtleties, from the earlier views, than an approach to sim- 
jnicity of truth. I do not, therefore, venture to trouble you 
with any description on this head*. One word I would add 
in the way of a guard against misuse of terms from assumed 
analogies. We often hear processes described as fermenta- 
tive, which in truth have no relation, by any proved physical 
argument, with the true process of fermentation of vegetable 
matter connected 'with the production of wine. To take one 
example ; we speak commonly of the zymotic or fermentative 
diseases, applying the term to those maladies which, in the 
form of contagious fevers, become epidemic. Hence many 
are led to believe that in these diseases there is in the body 
an actual fermentation like that in wine or beer ; a compari- 
son no closer, according to our knowledge as it now actually 
exists, than might be instituted between the same process 
and the so-called ferment of a mob when it assembles to give 
vent to its turbulent rage. 

DISTILLATION. 

I have said that for many centuries there was nothing 
known to mankind beyond the formation of a vinous fluid. 
At length a new process was brought to bear on wine, which 
simple as it is to us now, was in its early days, and for many 
long days afterwards, a wonder and a mystery. This was 
the simple act of distilling wine, and of obtaining from it by 
distillation a fine spirit containing little or no water. The 
discovery of distillation of wine has been attributed to Albu- 
casis, or Casa, an Arabian chemist and physician of the 
eleventh century. The evidence on this point is not very 
convincing. It is true that the refined body called spirit of 
wine began to be known in alchemical and Arabian schools 



L] DISTILLATION. 11 

about or soon after the time of Casa, and from that circum- 
stance, rather than from direct evidence derived from his 
works, the discovery has probably been imputed to him. 
However, it is historically correct that from the school of 
Albucasis the discovery sprang. The alchemists or adepts 
were conversant with pure spirit, and, says Boerhaave, when 
they had reduced it to the utmost subtlety, they made use 
of it in the preparations of all their secret men strumas. 

Distillation itself was probably an imitation of nature, 
for nature is ever distilling and condensing. In the cool 
night air water condenses on the leaf and on the grass, as dew, 
and ascends as vapor in the sun. This process of raising 
water into a state of vapor by heat, and condensing it by cold, 
the simplest of immediate imitations of nature, would by easy 
transition pass to other liquids, and with special ease to that 
liquid which has rivalled water as a drink for man — wine. 

The pure spirit of wine in its earlier use was applied 
mainly to chemical and medicinal purposes, and indeed many 
centuries elapsed before the process of distillation became 
active for the production of those stronger drinks, which, 
under the name of " spirits," are now in such common use 
in daily life. Brandy from brennen, to burn; thus brant- 
wein, brandy, is a comparatively late term in European lit- 
erature. Gin, contracted from Geneva, is not to be found 
as signifying a spirituous drink in our vocabularies of two 
hundred years ago. The term rum is assigned to the native 
American peoples, who so designated the vinous spirit dis- 
tilled from sugar ; and whiskey (Celtic usige water), though 
it may have been known as a distilled drink as long as 
brantwein, has not been Anglicized, I believe, for more than 
a century and a half. 

In the earlier modes of distillation the instruments used 
were simple but effective. They consisted of the furnace, 
the receptacle to the furnace, the receiver which stood within 
the receptacle, and the alembic or condenser, which was 
made of tin or other metal. 

The ancient alembic, the use of which is still valued, was, 
in truth, a very scientific instrument, and caused a perfect 
collection of the distilled fluid. The spirit from the crude 
wine ascended from a heated reservoir -into a conical tube, 



12 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

and then downwards through a returning exit tube into a 
receiver. 

The adepts were, indeed, marvellously mechanical, and 
when we recall that they neither had cork nor elastic tubing, 
nor gas, we wonder by what clever devices they were so 
successful. They had many useful arts, I am sure, which we 
have improperly forgotten, and which might with advantage 
be revived. Some of their instruments, for a long time 
thought to be fanciful and useless, are being again consid- 
ered of value. One of these was called a cohobator, and an- 
other called a circulator, in which they caused spirits to boil 
and distil, and condense and distil again, for months at a time. 
The fluids went round and round in the circulator like the 
wheel of fortune, and many an adept has looked upon his 
fortune as spinning in that wheel, from which the elixir of 
life and the philosopher's stone w T ere, in his ardent imagina- 
tion, to be evolved. 

To sum up, let us remember the four stages in the general 
history of alcohol, from the first to the time when it came 
strictly under analytical chemical observation ; and, in re- 
gard to common knowledge, to the present time. 

(a.) The stage of manufacture of wine or beer by fermen- 
tation. A stage extending from the earliest history until 
the time of the Adepts, say about the eleventh century of 
the Christian era. 

(6.) A stage when there was distilled from the wine a 
lighter spirit called, first, spirit of wine, and afterwards 
alcohol. 

(c.) A stage when this subtile or distilled spirit from wine 
was applied in its refined and pure state to the arts and to 
the sciences. 

(d.) A stage when this same process of distillation was 
applied to the production of alcoholic spirits for the use of 
man as spirituous drinks, under the names of br-andy, gin, 
whiskey, rum — a stage comparatively modern. 

USES OF WINE. 

"We will, if you please, leave now, for a time, the consid- 
eration of wine and alcohol as drinks, and dwell briefly on 



I.] USE 8 OF WINE. 13 

the uses to which these fluids have been applied for other 
purposes. The study is peculiarly interesting, and I could 
easily carry you on during the whole course of these lec- 
tures with the narration of it. Unfortunately every word 
I have to say must be introduced into this hour, so that I 
can refer only to the salient points, and to a few only of 
these. 

From the first, the preservative or antiseptic quality of 
wine was recognized, and the fluid was employed for the pre- 
servation of animal and vegetable substances. The Roman 
butchers, who, like our modern butchers, sold their fresh and 
their salted meats, prepared their salted flesh in the follow- 
ing manner : — The animals they intended to preserve were 
kept from drinking any fin id on the eve of the day on which 
the killing took place. After the killing the parts to be 
preserved were boned and sprinkled lightly with pounded 
salt. Then, having well dried off all dampness, the opera- 
tors sprinkled more salt, and placed the pieces so as not to 
touch each other, in vessels that had been used for oil or 
vinegar. Over the whole they poured sweet wine, covered 
the contents of the vessels with straw, and, when they could, 
kept down the temperature of the room in which the vessel 
was placed by sprinkling snow around. When the cook 
wished to remove the salt from the meat, he took it out of the 
wine and boiled it first in milk and afterwards in rain water. 

Long previous to the Roman era this preservative process 
of wine had been recognized and applied. Palm wine was 
used by the Egyptians in their most costly processes of em- 
balming the bodies of the dead. This same application of 
wine, or of spirits of wine, for the preservation of animal 
and also of vegetable substances, has been maintained up to 
our time. In our museums the specimens therein preserved, 
in the moist state, are immersed in spirit, and the modern 
art of embalming is not perfected without the employment 
of the same antiseptic agent. 

Early afcer the discovery of the properties of wine the 
fact must have been observed that from a change in it 
another substance was producible, to which, in these days, 
we give the name of vinegar. To prevent the formation of 
vinegar in wine the ancients boiled the wine, and to remove 



14 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

the acidity arising from vinegar they added gypsum to sour 
wine, and thus rendered it palatable. Vinegar itself they em- 
ployed for purposes precisely the same as we do in this day ; 
they partook of it with vegetables, they employed it for 
preservation of animal and vegetable substances, and they 
applied it for numerous medicinal purposes. After the pro- 
cess of distillation was discovered by the Adepts, the dis- 
tillation of vinegar was also carried on, and in this way was 
obtained that strong vinegar, which enters so largely into 
various uses as an acid, called aromatic vinegar. 

Very early in history wine was employed for another pur- 
pose, that, namely, of extracting the active principles from 
plants and other substances possessiug, or supposed to possess, 
medicinal virtues. Dioscorides, one of the fathers of medi- 
cine, and particularly of that part which pertains to the use 
of curative substances, or medicaments proper, is full of 
descriptions of vinous tinctures, some of which were suffi- 
ciently potent even for our present use. A vinous tincture of 
this kind has a very singular and, I had almost said, roman- 
tic history. This is the wine of Mandragora. In the Isles 
of Greece there has grown for ages a plant called mandrake ; 
it belongs to the same family of plants as our belladonna, 
or deadly nightshade. From the root of this plant the 
Greeks extracted, by means of wine, a narcotic, and what in 
this day we should call an anaesthetic. Some, says our 
learned Dioscorides, boil the root in the wine down to a 
third part and preserve the decoction, of which they admin- 
ister a cyathus (about what would now be a common wine- 
glassful), for want of sleep, or for severe pains of any part, 
and also before operations with the knife or cautery, that 
these may not be felt. Again, he says, a wine is prepared 
from the bark without boiling, and three pounds of it are 
put into a cadus (about eighteen gallons) of sweet wine, and 
three cyathi of this are given to those who are cut or cau- 
terized, when, being thrown into a deep sleep, they do not 
feel any pain. Again he speaks of a preparation of man- 
dragora called morion, which causes infatuation and takes 
away the reason. Under the influence of this agent the 
person sleeps, without sense, in the attitude in which he 
took it, for three or four hours afterwards. Pliny, the 



I.] USES OF WINE. 15 

Roman historian, bears evidence, much later, to the same 
effect, and adds the singular remark that some persons have 
sought sleep from the smell of this medicine, And again, 
Lucius Apuleius, the author of the book called the ' Golden 
Ass,' who lived about 160 a.d., and of whose works eleven 
editions were republished in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries, savs that if a man has to have a limb mutilated,' 
sawn, or burnt, he may take half an ounce of mandragora 
in wine, and whilst he sleeps the member may be cut off 
without pain or sense. 

It is u 11 questionably to this same anaesthetic wine our own 
Shakespeare refers in his half-imaginary ? half-legendary 
Middle Age history. This is the wine of that insane root, 
which, says Macbeth, u takes the reason prisoner." This is 
the wine that Juliet drinks, and the action of which the 
Friar Lawrence describes — 

' ; Through all thy veins shall run 
A cold and drowsy humor, which shall seize 
Each vital spirit ; for no pulse shall keep 
His natural progress, but surcease to beat : 
No warmth, no breath, shall testify thou hVst ; 
. The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade 
To paly ashes ; thy eyes' windows fall, 
Like death when he shuts up the day of life ; 
Each part, deprived of supple government, 
Shall stiff, and stark, and cold appear like death : 
And in this borrow'd likeness of shrunk death 
Thou shalt remain full two and forty hours, 
And then awake as from a pleasant sleep." 

It follows therefore from the history of scientific dis- 
covery that our modern great advance of removing pain 
during surgical operations is in fact, if not as old as the 
hills, as old almost as wine. But is the story true, you say ? 
I answer Yes, and the answer is from experiment. Think- 
ing it a subject of very great interest, I instituted, a few 
years ago, an inquiry into the matter. Through the kindness 
of my friend, the late Mr. Daniel Hanbury, F.R.S., I ob- 
tained a fine specimen of mandragora root, and I made 
once again, after a lapse of probably five centuries, Mandra- 
gora wine. I tested this, and found it was a narcotic having 
precisely the properties that were anciently ascribed to.it. 



16 OJST ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

I found that in animals it would produce even the sleep of 
Juliet, not for thirty or forty hours, a term that must be 
accepted as a poetical license, but for the four hours named 
by Diosco rides easily, and that in awakening there was an 
excitement which tallies with the same phenomenon that 
was observed by the older physicians. 

Thus, one of the first uses of wine to man was amongst 
the most noble and beneficent that man by his ingenuity 
can confer on his kind, and if wine had been always used in 
this way and in none worse, Pater Lenseus might have 
retained his supremacy in the good opinion of all the world. 

Besides using wine for extracting the virtues of the vege- 
table kingdom, our ancient chemists tested it on metals and 
made it here subservient to their purpose. What they 
called the extract of Mars was a solution of iron, made 
with an astringent wine, and reduced into a thick consis- 
tency by fire. Eight ounces of the rust of iron, powdered 
very fine, were put into an iron pot and covered with four 
pints of strong red wine. The iron crucible was then set 
on the fire, and the mixture, stirred with an iron rod, was 
boiled to a third : then it was strained through a cloth and 
evaporated into an extract. To this extract wonderful cura- 
tive powers were ascribed, and indeed it was a very useful 
medicine. The metal antimony > also was subjected to the 
action of wine. The so-called liver of antimony was 
treated with white wine and dissolved in it, and to this day 
we retain the remedy. It was originally called the emetic 
wine. 

USES OF SPIRIT OF WINE OR ALCOHOL. 

After the process of distillation of wine was discovered, 
the use of the new spirit rose rapidly into application in a 
variety of ways. The adepts, the Middle Age chemists of 
whom I have spoken, kept this distilled spirit long a secret. 
They found in it a solvent for many things that before were 
insoluble. Oils, resins, gum resins, balsams were now 
brought into a medium that acted towards them as a men- 
struum, and straightway they were dissolved. The East 
Indian Sty rax Benzoin yielded a balsam which, dissolved in 
the distilled spirit, was a fortune to the chemists. The 



I.] USES OF SPIRIT OF WINE. 17 

Commander's balsam, or balsam for wounds, or Friar's bal- 
sam, was soon the reputed heal-all of every injury. 

The useful being extracted first out of the new distillate, 
beauty was next remembered. Alas for the female face 
divine, the cosmetic and the subtle wash that should veri- 
tably make young faces old and assumably make old faces 
young, were soon in process in the laboratory of the Adept 
who could distil wine. Again, the artist came in for a share 
in the discovery. The once insoluble and the useless resins 
and ambers were dissolved for his brush, and gave him coat- 
ings, preservatives, and washings, of which previously he 
had no conception. 

This spirit of wine burns. It does not touch oil for the 
light it gives, but how strange ! it burns away without a 
trace of smoke, and with an excellent heat. So the spirit 
lamp in due time is invented. A trifle, say you ? Nay, it 
was as great an advance to the chemist who first used it as 
the gas in the Bunsen burner is to us. 

Once more ; this subtle spirit has in it the virtue of pre- 
serving all organic substances with which it is brought in 
contact. It masters putrefaction itself ; perchance the elixir 
of life is therefore found. It dissolves insoluble bodies ; 
perchance it will by careful study and experiment reveal the 
grand secret of transmutation. In this way reasoned its 
first masters. 

I must not dwell longer over these details of minor things 
of major usefulness. I must turn to some applications of 
our refined spirit which are major in fact as well as in use, 
in theory as well as in practice, in science as well as in art. 
In this regard we have to consider alcohol as the basis of 
other essences not less potent than itself. 

The process of distillation of essences from liquids and 
from vegetable substances once established, it was but 
natural that some Adept should turn his hand to mineral 
bodies and try if they would not yield some new product 
that should be of effective and novel quality. Into the dis- 
tillatory soon pass, therefore, all manner of things, from the 
horn of the stag or hart, to the skull and brain of the dead 
man. Among other substances there was submitted to dis- 
tillation the green stony crystal found in the earth, and 



18 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

called green vitriol, in Latin vitriolum. The result of the 
distillation of this vitriolum was to obtain as a yield, in the 
retort, the heavy oily corrosive riuid called, originally, spirit 
of vitriol, called now oil of vitriol or sulphuric acid. 

Many were the fanciful things thought of by the Adepts 
concerning this oil, and even to the letters of which the 
word vitriolum is made up they attached a mystical symbol- 
ism. In course of time they began to combine and to distil 
other fluids with the corrosive sulphurous oil, and amongst 
the first of fluids used in this manner stood spirit of wine. 
The experiment did not deceive them, for it gave them as a 
product one of the most useful and wonderful of liquids. 
To them this new liquid as it first was taken from the retort 
was an infinite marvel. They poured it on water and it 
floated, on spirit and it floated. They poured it into their 
hands, and, lo ! it boiled there. It escaped from them into 
an invisible state or air before they could bottle it ; it burned 
and exploded. It caused, when it passed off from the sur- 
face of the living body, an intense cold. It dissolved wax, 
oil, fat, gums, resins, balsams, and yet when it was set free 
it let them fall again. It was so light that a measure which 
would hold ten pounds weight of water would only hold 
seven pounds of this light intangible liquid. What name 
shall they apply to this substance, the lightest known ? 
They designate it by a term indicating the lightest thing 
they can conceive ; they compare it with the refined medium, 
with which the philosophers imagine the firmament to be 
filled, and they give it the name of cether. 

Of what strange use this magical fluid has been to man 
we all know. It was introduced early into medicine, and 
was well studied last century by Dr. Ward, and by Mr. 
Turner, of Liverpool. In our own time, it has been discov- 
ered to have the power of suspending sensation and sensi- 
bility when inhaled into the lungs, and by its means there 
has been re-introduced to the world that beneficent and long 
lost art of rendering the body insensible to pain during sur- 
gical operations. 

More recently by a study of the application of ether for 
the production of intense cold, I myself, for benumbing the 
body, introduced that local use of it called the ether spray. 



I.] U8JSS OF SPIRIT OF WINE. 19 

The value of this secondary alcohol to man is indeed in- 
estimable. You know how valuable it has been in photo- 
graphy as the volatile solvent of collodion, and in other 
various departments of the fine and useful arts it has ren- 
dered equally good service. 

From the distillation of vitriolum our adepts soon passed 
to other solid substances. They distilled saltpetre, and so 
got the spirit of nitre, which we call now nitric acid ; they 
distilled common salt in combination with oil of vitriol, and 
so got spirit of salts (marine acid), which we call hydro- 
chloric acid. Again, with these new spirits they distilled 
spirits of wine to obtain new ethers, nitrous and marine. 
Then a chemist, the Count de Lauragnais, distilled together 
acetic acid and spirit of wine, by which process he obtained 
acetous ether. Thus by these double actions, a numerous 
series of useful ethers has been obtained, which is too long 
for me to enumerate. 

From the observation of the fermentation of wine we 
derive, in a certain sense, our first knowledge of gases. 
Van Helmont gave to the gas which comes from the ferment- 
ing of vegetable matter the name of gas sylvestre, and from 
this may be dated the origin of the study of these invisible 
forms of matter. Priestley made some of his early observa- 
tions on the gas which escaped from fermenting malt in a 
brewery at Warrington, and was led step by step to the 
liberation of gases from mineral and earthy substances, and 
so to the discovery of oxygen. Upon that discovery, coupled 
with his method of collecting gases by displacement of water, 
and of trying their qualities, came the process of distilling 
and collecting a gas from coal, hence called coal gas. 

After the discovery of the element known as chlorine, 
and of the compounds of that element with other elements, 
another new era was opened in the history of alcohol. By 
passing chlorine through alcohol, Liebig obtained that nar- 
cotic substance which we call chloral hydrate ; and by treat- 
ing alcohol with chloride of lime, the same great experi- 
mentalist produced for us chloroform, an agent which has 
rivalled ether in its service as a means of relieving pain. 
A glance at the table — No. I. of the Appendix — of anaes- 
thetics or sleep producers will show by the names in italics 



20 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

those substances which come from alcohol. All that have 
proved of most, use excepting one, nitrous oxide or laughing 
gas, have this common origin. 

Had the time not been expended, I could have brought 
before you illustration upon illustration of these secondary 
uses of alcohol to man ; but I must be content with having 
recalled to your minds some of the more striking facts in the 
history of the curious and important liquid which is now 
the subject of our studies. 



II.] THE ALCOHOL GROUP OF ORGANIC BODIES. 21 



LECTURE II. 

THE ALCOHOL GROUP OF ORGANIC BODIES — ACTIONS OF 
DIFFERENT ALCOHOLS. 

If before a chemist of a hundred years ago you could have 
placed a specimen of spirit of wine or alcohol, and could 
have asked him of what it was composed, he would have 
told you that it was the element water combined with the 
element fire, to which elementary fire he would give the 
name of phlogiston, a name derived from a Greek word, 
signifying to burn or inflame. He would tell you that all 
bodies that burn are phlogisticated, and that bodies that 
would not burn are dephlogisticated. The substance that 
was left behind is, he would probably add, the element with 
which the elementary fire had previously been combined. 
Were you to ask him whence he derived this knowledge, 
he would say, " from the greatest chemist who had ever 
lived, George Ernest Stahl, Professor of Medicine, Anatomy, 
and Chemistry in the University of Halle, who had died in 
Berlin, whither he had gone to be physician to the King of 
Prussia — forty years ago." 

As proof that alcohol was elementary water combined 
with phlogiston, our ancient chemist would probably show 
you this experiment : — He would place a portion of the 
spirit in a cup, would set fire to the spirit, and would invert 
over the flame a glass vessel, shaped almost like a common 
globe, which he would call a cucurbit, into which he would 
allow the flame to ascend. He would indicate that within 
the glass vessel a vapor, derived from the burning fluid, 
formed and condensed, as you see it forming and condensing 
now within this glass. Collecting this fluid, he would prove 
to you that it was water, which water he could show to be 
nothing else but one indivisible thing, therefore an element. 
Thus his demonstration would be complete. The element, 



22 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

while it existed as spirit, yielded fire on burning ; it was 
fire water. The fire was condensed with the water. Noth- 
ing could be plainer, according to the light of his science. 

If you had inquired of the chemist whether he had any 
symbol by which to denote elementary water or spirit, he 
would give you, as a symbol for water, a sign something like 
the letter V, with two wavy lines following the letters ; and 
for spirit of wine, a sign like the letter V with the letter S 
in the centre, as I put it on the black board ; and if once 
more you questioned him as to whether his laboratory con- 
tained any other similar chemical substance, he would ans ver 
— none. Spirit of wine stood by itself, a pure substance, 
possessing single and special virtues. 

If, passing over the intervening hundred years, you asked 
the chemist of to-day, " What is alcohol ? " he would tell you 
that it was an organic radical called ethyl, combined with 
the elements of water [but one of them in smaller propor- 
tion than that in which it is found in water]. He would 
explain that water was no longer considered to be an ele- 
ment, but to be composed of two elements, called hydrogen 
and oxygen, two* equivalents of hydrogen being combined 
in it with one equivalent of oxygen. He would inform yon 
that the radical he had called ethyl was a compound of car- 
bon and hydrogen, and he would add that this radical in 
alcohol took the place of one of the equivalents of hydrogen 
of water. He thereupon would give you symbols for water 
and alcohol, but symbols of a very different kind to those 
presented by his learned predecessor. He would express the 
names of tiie elements composing the water and spirit by the 
first letters of their names, and add their equivalents, or 
parts by figures attached to the letters. Thus his symbol 
for water would be H.O; for the radical ethjd, C,H 5 ; and 

* Dr. Richardson here as elsewhere uses the new mode of express- 
ing the composition of water. The old mode says that water is 
composed of HO, that is, one equivalent each of hydrogen and 
oxygen. The new mode does, not intend to say that there is any 
more hydrogen or any less oxygen than was expressed by HO in 
any given quantity of water. The expressions new and old mean 
just the same in that respect. The only -difference is in the 
modes of expressing the same fact so far as quantity of either ele- 
ment is concerned. 



II. ] THE ALCOHOL GROUP OF ORGANIC BODIES. 23 

for alcohol (C. 2 H 5 )HO or C.,H 6 0, [being one equivalent of 
hydrogen less than in ethyl and water together.] 

Were you interested about the theory of phlogiston, in- 
vented by the illustrious George Ernest Stahl, your modern 
guide would instruct you that the theory had long since been 
discarded, and that towards the latter part of the last cen- 
tury the very books of its discoverer had been burned, in 
derision, by a priestess of science in one of the temples of 
science in Paris. Then through what a wonderful history of 
discovery during the hundred years he would, if he liked, 
lead you. Into this cucurbit in which I burned the alcohol, 
and which you will observe I closed by placing it with its 
mouth downwards upon the table, he would pour clear lime 
water as I do now ; he would shake the water round the 
sides of the cucurbit and see, as he did it, the water become 
milky white. This phenomenon he would indicate was due 
to the presence of a gas which the old chemist had actually 
collected but had overlooked. That gas is carbonic acid. 
It, as well as the water, was the product of the combustion 
of the spirit, and it now, in combination with the lime water, 
has united with the lime, forming chalk or carbonate of lime. 
Following the history of this gas, once called fixed air, be- 
cause it could be fixed by lime and other substances, he 
would show how it had been proved to consist of carbon and 
oxygen; how it is given off from the burning of bodies con- 
taining carbon; and how a French chemist of the last cen- 
tury, named Lavoisier, traced out by analysis that, in fer- 
mentation, the juice of grapes is changed from being sweet 
and full of sugar into a vinous liquor, which no longer con- 
tains, any sugar, — the inflammable liquor known as spirit 
of wine ; [carbonic acid being also at the same time given 
off.] Thence it would be shown that the same illustrious 
chemist, making an analysis of sugar and studying the effects 
of yeast in causing fermentation of sugar, collected and 
weighed the elements produced, determined the elementary 
composition of spirit as consisting of carbon, hydrogen, and 
oxygen, and from his research announced the new principle 
in chemistry, that in all the operations in art and nature 
nothing is created ; that an equal quantity of matter exists 
both before and after the experiment ; that the quality and 



24 ON ALCOHOL. [Lectuke 

quantity of the elements remain precisely the same; that 
nothing takes place beyond changes and modifications in the 
combinations of the elements ; and that in every chemical 
experiment an exact equality must be supposed between the 
elements of the body examined, and those of the products of 
its analysis. Finally, on this head, he would state the 
theory of Lavoisier, that must consists of alcohol combined 
with carbonic acid, and that the effects of vinous fermenta- 
tion upon sugar are reduced to the mere separation of the 
elements of sugar into two portions ; one portion oxygenated 
at the expense of the other, so as to form carbonic acid ; the 
other disoxygenated to form alcohol ; so that were it possible 
to reunite alcohol and carbonic acid the product would be 
sugar. Bringing you down to a later period, the modern 
chemist would describe a theory current about between thirty 
and forty years ago that alcohol is a compound of olefiant 
gas and water, and that in a state of vapor it consists of equal 
volumes of these. Or, again, that it was a hydrate of ether ; 
or, again, according to a still later view, that it was a 
hyd rated oxide of ethyl. Thus he would bring you to the 
latest theory as to composition which I have already 
supplied. 

Lastly, if for the sake of further comparison you asked 
the chemist of to-day whether alcohol had any ally or con- 
gener, he would reply, many. He would give you, for in- 
stance, this spirit, which he would call methylic alcohol, and 
which he would tell you was got also by distillation, only that 
the distillation was dry, and that the substance distilled was 
wood ; or he would give you this specimen, which he would 
call amylic alcohol, and which he would tell you was got by 
distillation, not of wood, but of potato. Again he would 
show you other specimens, to which he would give different 
names as indicated in table No. II. of the Appendix. 

Directing your attention to the composition of these alco- 
hols, the chemist would beg you to observe that their chemi- 
cal construction is throughout the same, that is to say, in all 
cases, a radical composed of carbon and hydrogen has 
replaced one of the equivalents of hydrogen of water. The 
radicals, however, vary in respect to the equivalents of the 
elements of which they are composed, and to distinguish 



IL] THE ALCOHOL GROUP OF ORGANIC BODIES. 25 

them they have different names. Essentially each radical, 
though it is composed of more than one element, acts as if it 
were one, and is called a base, because it is a root or origin 
upon which other structures rest. Thus, in the present case, 
the radicals, as they vary in amount of carbon and hydrogen 
which they contain, produce, in each case of the combina- 
tion with water, an alcohol possessing a different property 
or different properties from the other alcohols. The table 
No. III. of the Appendix will give an illustration of the 
increase of carbon and hydrogen in the radicals of the 
series. 

The first of the radicals, methyl, is composed of one 
equivalent of carbon and three of hydrogen. The radical 
ethyl of two of carbon and five of hydrogen. The radical 
propyl of three of carbon and seven of hydrogen, and so on, 
the increase in the equivalents of the elements being after 
a given rule in the whole series, the carbon increasing one, 
and the hydrogen two with each progressive step. So, as 
the alcohols progressively change from the first of the series, 
the methylic, they grow richer in carbon and hydrogen, and 
proportionately they grow heavier, less soluble, and less 
volatile. 

A very simple experiment suffices to show the increase of 
carbon in these series. If I take a piece of cotton wool, 
place it in a glass cup, pour upon it a little methylic alcohol, 
in which alcohol there is the smallest amount of carbon, set 
fire to it and hold a white plate over the. flame, the plate 
remains white because the air that reaches the flame is 
sufficient to consume all the carbon. If I do the same 
experiment with ethylic alcohol, although the carbon is a 
little greater, yet the result remains the same. If I move 
two steps higher, viz., to butylic alcohol, in which there ar« 
four equivalents of carbon, the combustion is not quite 
complete, and therefore a shade or stain of carbon is left on 
the plate ; and if, going one step further in the series, I use 
amylic alcohol, then the combustion is rendered so imperfect 
that a thick layer of carbon, derived from the alcohol, in the 
destruction of it by the burning, is left upon the white surface. 
I may digress here for a moment to state, — if the practical 
fact about to be told be considered a digression, — that this 



26 OJST ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

simple mode of testing common alcohol will serve roughly 
to detect extreme mixture of it with the heavier alcohol 
— fusel oil, some of which I last burnt. 

The physical distinctions between the various alcohols now 
before us are marked by other signs. For example, as we 
move from the methylic alcohol upwards, we discover that 
the vapors of the alcohols increase in weight, that as fluids 
they grow heavier, and that their boiling point, that is to 
•say the temperature required to make them boil, has to be 
increased. Another table, No. IY. of the Appendix, illus- 
trates these facts in relation to four alcohols of the series : 
viz., methylic, ethylic, butylic, and amylic. 

Thus the vapor density of methylic alcohol is 16 when 
compared with hydrogen gas as a standard ; of ethylic 
alcohol, 23 ; of butylic, 37 ; and of amylic, 44. In respect 
to the specific gravity of the fluids, that is to say of the 
weights of the fluids themselves, compared with water 
estimated as a thousand, the same rule extends, with the one 
remarkable exception, viz., that the methylic alcohol appears 
heavier than the ethylic, after which the weights increase, so 
that amylic alcohol stands as 811, to 792 the weight of 
ethylic. Again, as to the boiling points, the lightest 
alcohol boils at 140, that is 72° below the boiling point 
of water ; ethylic at 172; propylic at 205; butylic at 
230, or 18° above the boiling point of water ; and amylic 
at 270, or 58° above the boiling point of w^ater, on Fahren- 
heit's scale. 

The analogies between these various alcohols are sustained 
throughout by other chemical changes relating to them. If 
we expose diluted common alcohol to the atmosphere under 
fitting conditions it becomes acidified ; in other words, it is 
converted into vinegar. This is clue to its oxidation, in 
which process there are two steps ; one by which the spirit 
is converted into a substance called aldehyde (dehydrated 
alcohol — al-de-hyd), and then into acetic acid, or vinegar. 
In the formation of the aldehyde two atoms of the hydrogen 
are oxidized, by which water is produced, and the aldehyde 
has therefore the composition of C. 2 H 4 0. In the formation 
of the acetic acid another atom of oxygen is added, and the 
acetic acid has therefore the composition of C 2 H 4 2 . This 



IT.] THE ALCOHOL GBOUP OF ORGANIC BODIES. 27 

same series of changes extends through all the alcohols, as 
will be seen from table No. VIII. of the Appendix. 

I said, in the first lecture, that from common or ethylic 
alcohol a new compound can be obtained by heating it with 
sulphuric acid, to which compound the name of ether is 
applied. In like manner, an ether can be obtained from the 
other alcohols. 

If chlorine be brought to bear upon ethylic alcohol, the 
elements of water, that is to say, the oxygen and the hydro- 
gen are removed, and are replaced by chlorine, and there is 
formed chloride of ethyl. This change can be extended to 
all the other alcohols, the properties of the products being 
modified by the base. 

The same rule extends to the action of iodine, and to that 
of nitrous acid. 

One of these derivatives, I mean the nitrite of amyl, has 
within these last few years obtained a remarkable importance 
owing to its extraordinary action upon the body. A distin- 
guished chemist, Professor Guthrie, while distilling over ni- 
trite of amyl from amylic alcohol, observed that the vapor, 
when inhaled, quickened his circulation, and made him feel as 
if he had been running. There was flushing of his face, rapid 
action of his heart, and breathlessness. In 1861-2, I made 
a careful and prolonged study of the action of this singular 
body, and discovered that it produced its effect by causing 
an extreme relaxation, first, of the blood-vessels, and after- 
wards of the muscular fibres of the body. To such an extent 
did this agent relax, that I found it would even overcome 
the tetanic spasm produced by strychnia, and having thus 
discovered its action, I ventured to propose its use for re- 
moving the spasm in some of the extremest spasmodic dis- 
eases. The results have more than realized my expectations. 
Under the influence of this agent, one of the most agonizing 
of known human maladies, called Angina pectoris, has been 
brought under such control that the paroxysms have been 
regularly prevented, and in one instance, at least, alto- 
gether removed. Even tetanus, or lock-jaw, has been sub- 
clued by it, and in two instances of an extreme kind, so 
effectively as to warrant the credit of what may be truly 
called a cure. 1 notice this action of nitrite of amy 1 because 



28 OJSf ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

it will be referred to again in explanation of certain of the 
effects of alcohol. 

I should have liked, if there had been time, to have dwelt 
at greater length on many other interesting points bearing 
on these different alcohols and their derivatives. I should 
have been pleased to have presented to you a more extended 
account of the progress of discovery during the past century 
leading to these modern facts; and I should much have 
liked to render more complete the description of the alcohol 
series of bodies, by explaining the differences of what are 
called monatomic, diatomic, and triatomic alcohols; but I 
must desist for two reasons ; first, because the study would 
lead me into too great detail, and secondly, because it would 
introduce to notice a series of compounds, the physiological ac- 
tion of which are not so well understood as are those to which 
I shall soon direct your attention, and the study of which is 
more than enough for the time that is at our disposal. It 
must be considered sufficient, therefore, if I have succeeded 
in showing that the common alcohol is but one of a group 
of a series of chemical compounds, and that its superior 
claim to our notice rests upon its antiquity as a discovered 
substance, and on its enormous distribution in civilized 
communities, rather than on its special or distinctive prop- 
erties as a chemical agent. 

One other series of facts I would, however, briefly de- 
scribe before leaving this part of my subject. If into this 
ethylic alcohol I throw a portion of the metal sodium, a 
brisk action immediately begins to take place ; as you will 
see, a gas escapes which I easily collect in a glass tube, which 
burns, and if mixed with air, explodes, as you hear. The 
gas is hydrogen. A change of substitution has occurred in 
this experiment. The hydrogen belonging to the water of 
the alcohol has been replaced by the sodium, and what is 
called sodium alcohol is produced. The result would have 
been the same with potassium as the replacing metal. 

By acting on common alcohol with strong potash, then 
with sulphuretted hydrogen, and afterwards with iodide of 
ethyl, a new alcohol is produced called mercaptan. In this 
fluid the oxygen of the alcohol is replaced by sulphur, so 
tiiat the formula for it is (CoH 5 )HS. It is a fluid, whitish 



II.] ACTION OF METIIYLIC ALCOHOL. 29 

in color, and of so offensive and penetrating an odor that 
it can hardly be approached until it is largely diluted with 
common alcohol. It is nearly insoluble in water, but imparts 
to it its peculiar odor; its specific gravity is 832, compared 
with water as 1000 ; it is thirty-one times heavier than 
hydrogen, and it boils at 135° Fahr. 

Sulphur alcohol is very rarely seen, but there is a diluted 
specimen here which has been prepared with very great care. 
There is only 5 per cent, of it in the solution, and yet its 
odor is as strong as can well be borne. 

From this point I. proceed to dwell on the action of certain 
of the alcohols which have been brought before us up to the 
present time, excluding on this occasion the alcohol best 
known, I mean the common alcohol of commerce, or as we 
know it chemically, ethylic alcohol. The point I shall aim 
at will be to show the influence of these alcohols upon animal 
life, and thereby to lead up to the action of ethylic alcohol 
pure and simple. The subject is one entirely new, and is 
limited to a very few bodies of the alcohol group, viz.. to 
methylic alcohol, butylic, amy lie, the potassium and sodium 
alcohols, and sulphur alcohol or mercaptan. 



ACTION OF METHYLIC ALCOHOL. 

Methylic alcohol, pyroxylic spirit or wood spirit, as it has 
been differently called, the spirit contained in the liquid 
obtained by distilling wood, has been known for about 62 
years. It was discovered by Mr. Philip Taylor, in 1812, 
and was soon used in lamps and for other purposes as a 
spirit. It was probably first made commercially by Messrs. 
Turnbull and Ramsay, of Glasgow. Its properties were in- 
vestigated and reported upon by Sir Robert Kane, of Dublin, 
in 1836, and it was also analyzed by Messrs. Dumas and 
Peligot, who determined that it contained 37.5 per cent, of 
carbon, 12.5 per cent, of hydrogen, and 50 per cent, of 
oxygen. It has an aromatic smell, with a slight acidity. 
The specimen I have used for my research had a specific 
weight of 810, water T>eing 1000, and it boiled at 140° 
Fahr. 



30 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

This spirit lias been much used in the arts in the place of 
alcohol for making varnishes. Having a lower boiling point 
it is more volatile than common alcohol. It is now also 
largely used in museums for preserving purposes, and it 
yields on oxidation a very powerful preservative vinegar. 
For the sake of economy it is often employed in the manu- 
facture of other compounds called methylated. 

Owing to the volatile nature of this alcohol it may be 
exhibited freely by inhalation in the same manner that 
chloroform is administered. It then enters the blood by 
being carried with the air that is inspired into the lungs. 
Here it is absorbed into the circulation by the minute blood- 
vessels which make their way from the heart into the lungs, 
and which ramify upon vesicles. By administering the 
vapor of methylic alcohol in this way its effects are rapidly 
developed, for it condenses quickly in the blood, is carried 
rapidly into the left side of the heart, and thence is dis- 
tributed by the arteries over the whole body as quickly as 
it is condensed and absorbed. 

The alcohol may be administered in the usual way, that 
is to say, in combination with water, hot or cold. In this 
way it is not unpleasant to the taste, and in one instance, as 
I am informed by a veteran member of my profession, this 
alcohol was invariably drunk by a well-known physician, in 
preference to common alcohol. He was accustomed to make 
it into toddy, with water and sugar, and considered that 
while it was as pleasant to take as ordinary spirituous 
drinks, it was less injurious than they are. Methylic alco- 
hol is much more rapid in its action, and much less pro- 
longed in its effects than is common alcohol, so that it pro- 
duces its effects promptly, and what is of most importance, 
it demands the least possible ultimate expenditure of animal 
force for its elimination from the body. This latter fact, I 
repeat, is of great moment, for, in the end, all these alco- 
holic fluids are depressants, and although at first, by their 
calling vigorously into play the natural forces, they seem to 
excite and are therefore • called stimulants, they themselves 
supply no force at any time, but cause expenditure of force, 
by which means they get away out * of the body and there- 
with lead to exhaustion and paralysis of motion. In other 



II] ACTION OF METHYLIC ALCOHOL. 81 

words, the animal force which should be expended on the 
nutrition and sensation of the body, is in part expended on 
the alcohol, an entirely foreign expenditure. 

The lighter the alcohol therefore, cceteris paribus, the less 
injurious its action, and so we may put down methylic alco- 
hol as the safest of the series of bodies to which it belongs. 
But it is not without potency of effect, and the phenomena 
it produces are sufficiently demonstrative. Its effects are 
developed in four distinct stages. 

The first stage is that of excitement of the nervous organi- 
zation ; the pulse is quickened, the breathing is quickened, 
the surface of the body is flushed, and the pupil is dilated. . 
After a little time there is a sense of languor, the muscles 
falling into a state of prostration and the muscular move- 
ments becoming irregular. If the administration be con- 
tinued the second stage follows. In this stage the muscular 
prostration is increased, the breathing is labored, and is 
attended by deep sighing movements at intervals of about 
four or five seconds, followed by further prostration, rolling 
over of the body upon the side, and distinct signs of intoxi- 
cation. From this condition the subject passes into the 
third stage, which is that of entire intoxication, complete 
insensibility to pain, with unconsciousness of all external 
objects, and with inability to exert any voluntary muscular 
power. The breathing now becomes embarrassed and blow- 
ing, with what is technically called " bronchial rale," or 
rattle, due to the passage of air through fiuid that has accu- 
mulated in the finer bronchial passages. The heart and 
lungs, however, even in this stage, retain their functions, 
and therefore recovery will take place if the conditions for 
it be favorable. Also, if the body be touched or irritated 
in parts, there will be response of motion, not from any 
knowledge or consciousness, but from what we physiologists 
call " reflex action ; " that is to say, the impression we have 
made by irritation upon the surface of the body has travelled 
by its usual route through the nerves to its nervous centre, 
and uncontrolled there has rolled back again, stimulating in 
its course some muscular fibre to motion. Probably the 
reason why the heart, which is a muscle, and the breathing 
muscles, continue to contract and relax while all the other 



32 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

portions are at rest is due to this fact, that the blood which 
the heart drives to the nervous centres conveys to the cen- 
tres which influence the heart a wave of motion that rolls 
hack upon these vital muscles, and sustains them still in 
their rhythmical motion. 

During all these stages there is no violent convulsive 
action, and no distinct tremor ; but one phenomenon has 
been step by step more marked, and that phenomenon is a 
reduction of the animal temperature. Even though the 
body of the subject be exposed to a temperature of 84°, that 
is summer heat, it will begin to cool from the first, and will 
continue to cool through all the stages, so that at last the 
loss of heat will become actually dangerous ; for the cold 
body cannot throw off water freely, and therefore fluid col- 
lects in the lungs, and there is risk of what may be plainly 
considered suffocation like as from drowning. I have seen 
this decline of temperature from methylic alcohol, in animals 
narcotized by it, proceed to the loss of eight degrees of 
heat on Fahrenheit's scale when the insensibility was at its 
extreme point. 

Presuming that the administration of the methylic spirit 
be continued when the third degree has been reached, there 
is a last stage, which is that of death. The two remaining 
nervous centres which feed the heart and respiration cease 
simultaneously to act, and all motion is over. After the 
death the blood throughout the body is found charged with 
the alcohol. The circulation of blood over the lungs has 
continued to the last, and so the lungs are found containing 
blood in both sides of the heart ; the vessels of the brain are 
engorged with blood, as are the other vascular organs. The 
blood itself is not materially changed in physical quality, 
but coagulates, or forms into clot, rather more slowly than 
usual. 

If at the third stage of insensibility the administration of 
methylic spirit be stopped, recovery from the insensibility and 
prostration will invariably take place on one condition, that 
the body be kept dry and warm. From four to five hours, 
however, are necessary before the recovery is complete, and 
under the best conditions the restoration of the animal 
temperature is not perfected under a period of seven hours. 



II.] ACTION OF BUTYLIC ALCOHOL. 33 

Happily we have no data to guide us that will show the 
effects on the animal body of the long continued use of 
methylic alcohol, for men have not as yet so steadily plied 
themselves with it as a drink as to induce phenomena of 
chronic intoxication from it. The above-named facts, how- 
ever, drawn from careful observations, in which the effects 
of the agent were seen on tt?3 inferior animals, and in one 
instance, where the fluid was taken by accident by the human 
subject, show that methylic alcohol, though it may be less 
potent than its allies, is sufficiently potent, and the inference 
is fair, indeed irresistible, that if the use of it were perse- 
vered in for long periods of time, it would lead to structural 
change in the body, just as all other chemical agents do that 
modify and pervert the natural mechanism. An agent that 
causes congestion of the brain cannot be employed many 
times without destroying the delicate organization of the 
vascular structure of the brain, neither can it influence the 
other vascular organs in the same way without prejudice to 
their structure ; neither can it destroy the function of the 
nerves, of the muscles, and of the organs of the senses with- 
out prejudice to their functions. In many respects this, the 
lightest and least injurious of the alcohols, resembles chloro- 
form in the ultimate action it produces on the body. It 
still more closely resembles ether, although recovery from 
the effects of both these agents is very much more rapid than 
from the spirit. It may consequently, as a chemical agent 
possessing a specific power of action over the living organism, 
be fairly classified with these agents. It is quite as artificial 
as they are, it is quite as dangerous in the long run, and its 
effects are more prolonged. 



ACTION OF BUTYLIC ALCOHOL. 

I pass over the second alcohol of our series, viz., ethylic 
alcohol, the common alcohol of wines and spirits, because 
that will of itself engage our attention for the remaining 
part of the course, after this lecture is concluded. I pass 
over propylic also for the reason that it is not easily sepa- 
rated as an alcohol, and is less perfectly studied than the 
2* 



34 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

other members of the group before us. Thus I am brought 
to what is called butylic alcohol. 

With this spirit we arrive at one of the heavier bodies of 
the group in which, as our table shows, there is a higher 
proportion of carbon and hydrogen than exists in those that 
are placed above it in the scale. Compared with common 
alcohol the weight of its vapor is as 37 to 23. Its weight, as 
a fluid, is 803 to 792, and its boiling point 230 Fahr. to 172. 
It is a heavier fluid ; it mixes indifferently with water, but 
it is not unpleasant to take when diluted and sweetened. 
Applied to the lips and tongue when in a pure state it creates 
a sensation of burning, in the same way as common spirit, 
but with more intensity, and there is this remarkable fact 
connected with the sensation, that after the burning effect 
has passed away an extreme numbness of the part, where the 
fluid was applied, remains. I made this observation origin- 
ally in 1869, and I have since often applied the knowledge 
with effect, in relieving, by the application of the agent, local 
pain. Toothache, for instance, is very quickly soothed by it. 

This alcohol is not obtained by a special process of distil- 
lation ; it is produced with other alcohols in the process of 
fermentation, and is obtained by what is called fractional 
distillation, that is, by distillation of it, at certain fixed tem- 
peratures, from fusel oil, or from the oil of beet-root, or 
from molasses after distillation of e thy lie spirit. 

The action of butylic alcohol on the animal body is 
divisible into four stages, the same as we have seen in respect 
to methylic spirit, but the period required for producing the 
different stages is greatly prolonged; and when the third 
stage, that of complete insensibility, is reached, there is 
added a new phenomenon which does not belong to any of 
the lighter alcohols. In this third degree, after the tem- 
perature of the body is depressed to the minimum by the 
butylic spirit, distinct tremors occur throughout the whole 
of the muscular system. These come on at regular intervals 
spontaneously, but they can be excited by a touch at any 
time, and in the intervals where they are absent there is 
frequent twitching of the muscles. The tremors themselves 
are not positively muscular contractions, but are rather 
vibrations or wave-like motions through the muscles, and 



IL] ACTION OF BUTYLIC ALCOHOL, 35 



are attended with an extreme deficiency of true contractile 
power in the muscular fibre. An electrical current passed 
through the muscles, which would in health throw them 
into rigid contraction, will now excite the tremors and keep 
them proceeding, but will not excite complete contraction. 
So long as the tremors are present the temperature of the 
body is depressed, falling even half a degree ; but when they 
cease the temperature rises again, not to the natural stand- 
ard, but up to or near to that which existed before the 
tremors were excited. After the tremors are once estab- 
lished-, they continue without further administration of the 
alcohol for ten and twelve hours, and so slowly do they de- 
cline, that they may remain in a slight degree for even 
thirty-six hours. They subside by remission of intensity 
and prolongation of interval of recurrence. One fact of 
singular significance attaches itself to these muscular tre- 
mors. They are the tremors which occur in man during the 
stage of alcoholic disease, when that malady is set up to 
which we give the name of delirium tremens. An ordinary 
intoxication with a lighter alcohol is insufficient to produce 
this extreme perversion of nervous aud muscular power, 
but the introduction of one of these heavier alcohols, or it 
may be the excessive saturation of the body with a lighter 
spirit, for on this point I am not sure, is sufficient to cause 
the tremulous motion. What the nature of these muscular 
movements is, what unnatural relationship exists between 
the nervous system, the muscles and the blood, to lead to 
them, are questions still unsolved. Involuntary, developed 
even against the will, excited by any external touch, attended 
with great reduction of temperature, and remaining as long 
as the temperature is reduced, they indicate an extreme de- 
pression of animal force : a condition in which all the force 
of life that remains has to be expended on the mere organic 
acts of life, on the support of the motions of the heart, the 
muscles of respiration, and the functions of the secreting 
glands. The voluntary systems of nerves and muscles are 
indeed well-nigh dead, and recovery rests entirely on the 
maintenance of the organic nervous power. Still recovery 
will take place if the body be sustained by external heat 
and by internal nourishment. 



36 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

In the extreme stage of intoxication from butylic alcohol 
the red blood in the arteries loses its rich color, and the 
blood from the veins, which flows with difficulty, is of a 
dirty hue. The blood coagulates readily, but the clot is 
loose, and the fibrine of which it is composed separates in a 
coarse network or mesh. The little corpuscles of the blood 
run into each other, forming rolls or columns. Indeed, it is 
wonderful how the blood circulates through the structures it 
should nourish. The vascular membranes of the brain are 
found charged with this tarry blood ; the brain structure is 
softened, and gives the odor of the poison, and the muscles, 
when divided by the knife, cut without firmness, yielding 
from numerous points the same tar-like blood. The vascular 
organs — spleen, liver, lungs, kidneys — are equally changed, 
and in a similar manner. Their fine structures are infiltrated 
with the deteriorated vascular fluid which was intended for 
their maintenance, and even the secretions and cavities of the 
body are perverted by being charged with fluid derived from 
the unnatural blood. This is the state of the body of one 
who dies insensible after the delirium and tremors which 
characterize the human malady, self-inflicted and terrible, 
known as delirium tremens. 



ACTION OF AMYLIC ALCOHOL. 

Amy lie alcohol, the next of our series, is obtained by the 
fermentation of potato starch, or starch of grain, and when 
pure is a colorless liquid. Its weight compared with water 
as 1000 is 818, and it boils at 270° Fahr. It is from this 
alcohol that the active substance, nitrite of amyl, to which I 
have before referred, is derived. The odor of amylic 
alcohol is sweet, nauseous, and heavy. The sensation of its 
presence remains long. In taste it is burning and acrid, and 
it is itself practically insoluble in water. When it is diluted 
with common alcohol it dissolves freely in water and gives 
a soft and rather unctuous flavor, I may call it a fruity fla- 
vor, something like that of ripe pears. 

Amylic alcohol, when it is introduced as an adulterant, is 
an extremely dangerous addition to ordinary alcohol, in what- 



IL] SODIUM AND POTASSIUM ALCOHOLS. 37 

ever form it is presented, whether as wine or spirit. Its 
action on the body is the same as that of butylic alcohol. 
It produces three stages of insensibility, ending in the pro- 
foundest narcotism, or coma, followed by reduction of tem- 
perature and by muscular tremors. These tremors recur 
with the most perfect regularity of themselves, but they can 
be excited at any moment by touching the body, or blowing 
upon it, or even by a sharp noise, such as the snap of the 
finger. In al] other respects the phenomena induced are the 
same as are observed from butylic alcohol, except that they 
are much more prolonged, from two to three days being 
sometimes required for the complete restoration of the 
animal temperature. The reason of this prolongation of 
action lies in the greater weight and the greater insolubility 
of this spirit ; that is to say, the force required to decom- 
pose it, or mechanically to lift it out of the body when it 
has once entered it, is so much greater than is required for 
the lighter spirits, which diffuse more readily through the 
secretions, volatilize by the breath or possibly undergo rapid 
decomposition. The odor of the substance remains for many 
hours in the animal tissues. Amy lie alcohol acts upon some 
resins and resinous substances, dissolving, I believe, certain 
of them more easily than the lighter spirits, but its peculiar 
odor prevents its application on a large scale. 



ACTION OF SODIUM AND POTASSIUM ALCOHOLS. 

The action of the sodium and potassium alcohols is 
exceedingly interesting in a physiological, although not in a 
practical point of view, except in respect to their varied uses 
as chemical reagents. They act on the living animal tissues 
as caustics, and will one day be considered of great service 
to the surgeon. Brought into contact with blood, in solu- 
tion, there is produced by them an almost instant crystalli- 
zation of needle-like crystals spread out in beautiful arbores- 
cent filaments. This arborescent appearance is identical with 
a crystallization which can be induced in these alcohols 
themselves, but there are also formed smaller radiant crys- 
tals due to the crystallization of the crystalioidal matter of 



38 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

the blood-cells, and singularly like the forms which, since 
the time of Dr. Richard Mead, have been described as 
occurring in the blood after infection by the poison of the 
viper. 

These metallic alcohols are powerful antiseptics, like 
common alcohol, over which they have an advantage in that 
they more thoroughly harden soft structures. I have taken 
advantage of this action to employ them for the preserva- 
tion of nervous matter, which is rapidly prone to decomposi- 
tion. 

I should add that, by some chemists these alcohols are 
called ethylates of sodium or potassium, a term which is 
thought to define more correctly their chemical construction. 



ACTION OF MERCAPTAN OR SULPHUR ALCOHOL. 

I have already referred briefly to this most curious body 
of the alcohol series, describing it as an alcohol in which 
oxygen is replaced by sulphur. In experimenting with it a 
solution containing 5 per cent, is sufficient, and the vapor 
of it may be inhaled in order to produce its effects. These 
are most remarkable. 

I found, by direct experiment, that the vapor is not 
irritating to breathe, but that its influence on the system is 
speedily pronounced. There is a desire for sleep, and a 
strange, unhappy sensation, as if some actual or impending 
trouble were at hand. This is succeeded by an easy but 
extreme sensation of muscular fatigue ; the limbs feel too 
heavy to be lifted, and rest is absolutely necessary. There 
is, at the same time, no insensibility to pain, and no intoxi- 
cation. The pulse is rendered feeble and slow, and remains 
so for one or two hours ; but, in time, all the effects pass 
off, and active motion in the air helps quickly to dispose of 
them. 

On. the inferior animals the action of mercaptan is equally 
peculiar. Frogs exposed to its vapor fall asleep, and seem 
to pass into actual death, except that the eye remains bright. 
They may be left in this apparently lifeless state for half an 
hour, then, removed into the air, they commence in the 



II.] MERCAPTAN OR SULPHUR ALCOHOL. 39 

course of an hour and a half or two hours, to breathe again, 
and gradually recover, precisely as if they were awaking 
from sleep. The action of this alcohol on the animal body, 
though it produces these extreme effects, is less injurious 
than that of the other alcohols. It escapes rapidly by the 
breath, and in some new form, as a sulphur compound. It 
communicates to the breath an ordor which is by no means 
uncommon in persons who indulge to a great extent in the 
use of ordinary alcohol. This observation suggests a most 
important explanation of certain phenomena connected with 
the action of common alcohol. It appears to me that in 
some states there is actually produced in the living organ- 
ism, by the vital chemistry, sulphur compounds, derived 
probably from the bile, a substance rich in sulphur, which 
compounds, distributed by the blood to the nervous matter, 
create phenomena similar to those I have described as fol- 
lowing upon the inhalation of mercaptan. Thus, under 
unnatural modes of life, the body may actually make its own 
poisons, and the doctor be often asked to remove what the 
patient, if he were a better chemist and a wiser, ^an, would 
never produce for the exercise of the doctor's skiH. 



40 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



LECTURE HI. 

THE INFLUENCE OF COMMON OR ETHYLIC ALCOHOL ON ANIMAL 
LIFE. THE PRIMARY PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION ON ALCOHOL. 

The primary action of ethylic alcohol on animal life forms 
our next study. This is the alcoholic spirit which enters 
into wines, beers, and ordinary spirituous liquors. 

There are two modes in which this subject must be dis- 
cussed. One relates to the mere physical action of alcohol 
upon the body, the other to its action as a food for the body. 
Of the varied substances which we take into our systems, 
some, like chloroform, or opium, produce very marked phy- 
sical effects, which we may call physiological, but which 
have nothing to do with the nourishment of the organism, 
nor with the sustainment of its vital power. Other sub- 
stances act as foods, producing certain continuous phenomena 
of structural build and of vital function. Alcohol is pecu- 
liar in that we are obliged to consider it, at the present time, 
from each of these points of view, and I now take up the 
first, I mean the purely physical action of alcohol, reserving 
the question of its qualities as a food for a future lecture. 

A very simple problem lies before us. The sum of £117,- 
000,000 of money is invested in this country on alcohol as 
a commercial substance. Where does the alcohol go ? We 
know that the larger part of it goes for consumption by 
human beings. A little — I mean little, by comparison — is 
used for the purposes of art and science, but the greater 
portion of it, practically all but the whole of it, is consumed 
by human beings. Thus a question arises, we may almost 
say, of engineering and commerce, a question, therefore, 
particularly worthy of this Society, viz., What is the good 
of this invested capital, and of the substance which it sup- 
plies ? It is not necessary for any of us to consider our- 
selves as physicians in studying this matter, but we may all 
consider ourselves as animal engineers, anxious to know the 



III.] INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON ANIMAL LIFE. 41 

physical properties of agents which influence the animal 
life. To put it in a very practical way, suppose that there 
was no question involved in regard to the influence of al- 
cohol upon the body, but that in the course of the invention 
of motive engines — common inanimate engines, which can 
be made to exhibit motive power by the application of heat 
to water — it had originally become the practice from some 
circumstance to put into the engines a certain proportion of 
spirit with the water, and to work the engines with this mix- 
ture. Then suppose somebody said, " This is a very expen- 
sive process of working the engines ; maybe they will work 
as well without the spirit." You would naturally inquire, 
" Can such be fact ? " And you would seek an engineer to 
fill the place I have now the honor to occupy, to explain 
to you the mechanism of the engines. You would also beg 
him to explain and put before you facts which would bear 
upon the point, whether the admixture of spirit and water 
was useful or useless ? Now, please, consider me to-night 
as an engineer, and the animal body as the engine of which 
I am to speak. I am not going to address a word to you as 
a physician ; I am not going to offer advice. 1 simply mean 
to place before you, as far as I know them, the facts relating 
to the physical effects of this thing, alcohol, when it is put 
into one of those millions of engines which we call men. 

Alcohol will enter the body — the engine of which I am 
about to speak — by many channels. It can be introduced 
by injecting it under the skin or into a vein. Exalted by 
heat into the form of vapor, it may be inhaled by man or 
animal, when it will penetrate into the lungs, will diffuse 
through the bronchial tubes, will pass into the minute air 
vesicles of the lungs, will travel through the minute circula- 
tion with the blood that is going over the air vesicles to the 
heart, will condense in that blood, will go direct to the left 
side of the heart, thence into the arterial canals and so 
throughout the body. Or, again, the spirit can be taken in 
by the more ordinary channel, the stomach. Through this 
channel it finds its way, by two routes, into the circulation. 
A certain portion of it — the greater portion of it — is ab- 
sorbed direct by the veins of the alimentary surface, finds 
its way straight into the larger veins, which lead up to the 



42 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

heart, and onwards with the course of the blood. Another 
portion is picked up by those small structures which proceed 
from below the mucous surface of the stomach, which are 
called villi, and from which originate a series of fine tubes 
that reach at last the lower portion of a common tube 
known as the thoracic duct, the tube which ascends in front 
of the spinal column, and terminates at the junction of two 
large veins on the left side of the body, at a point where 
the venous blood, returning from the left arm, joins with the 
returning blood from the left side of the head on its way to 
the heart. 

Thus in whatever way the alcohol is introduced, it enters 
the blood ; the shortest way is that by inhalation, the 
longest and most ordinary way is by the stomach. Indeed, 
except for experimental purposes, the introduction is always 
by this latter and longest route, and we may, for our prac- 
tical purposes, only think of alcohol as a fluid taken by the 
mouth into the stomach, and absorbed like a food or a drink 
from the surface of the alimentary canal. 

Suppose then a certain measure of alcohol be taken into 
the stomach, it will be absorbed there ; but, previous to 
absorption, it will have to undergo a proper degree of dilu- 
tion with water, for there is this peculiarity respecting 
alcohol when it is separated by an animal membrane from a 
watery fluid like the blood, "that it will not pass through the 
membrane until it has become charged, to a given point of 
dilution, with water. It is itself, in fact, so greedy for 
water, it will pick it up from watery textures, and deprive 
them of it until, by its saturation, its power of reception is 
exhausted, after which it will diffuse into the current of 
circulating fluid. 

To illustrate this fact of dilution, I perform a simple ex- 
periment. Into a bladder is placed a mixture consisting 
of equal parts of alcohol and distilled water. Into the neck 
of the bladder a long glass tube is inserted and firmly tied. 
Then the bladder is immersed in a saline fluid representing an 
artificial serum of blood. The result is, that the alcohol in the 
bladder absorbs water from the surrounding saline solution, 
and thereby a column of fluid passes up into the glass 
tube. A second mixture of alcohol and water, in the propor- 



III.] INDLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON ANIMAL LIFE. 43 

tion this time, of one part of alcohol to two of water, is pat 
into another bladder immersed in like manner in an artificial 
serum. In this instance, a little fluid also passes from the 
outside into the bladder, so that there is a rise of water in 
the tube, but less than in the previous instance. A third 
mixture, consisting of one part of alcohol with three parts 
of water, is placed in another little bladder, and is also 
suspended in the artificial serum. In this case there is, for 
a time, a small rise of fluid in the tube connected with the 
bladder ; but after a while, owing to the dilution which took 
place, a current from within outwards sets in, and the tube 
becomes empty. Thus each bladder charged originally with 
the same quantity of fluid contains at last a different 
quantity. The first contains more than it did originally; 
the second a- little more; the third a little less. From the 
third absorption takes place, and if I keep changing and 
replacing the outer fluid which surrounds the bladder with 
fresh serum, I can in time, owing to the double current of 
water into the bladder through its coats, and of water and 
alcohol out of the bladder into the serum, remove all the 
alcohol. In this way it is removed from the stomach into 
the circulating blood after it has been swallowed. When 
we dilute alcohol with water before drinking it we quicken 
its absorption. If we do not dilute it sufficiently it is 
diluted in the stomach by transudation of water into the 
stomach until the required reduction for the absorption of 
the diluted alcohol; the current then sets in towards the 
blood, and passes into the circulating canals by the veins. 

All the returning veins end in the large trunks which 
terminate in the central organ of the circulation — the heart. 
The heart, a moving muscular organ, has four cavities ; two 
above called the auricles, two below called the ventricles. 
The cavities on the right side are called respectively the 
right auricle and right ventricle ; the cavities on the left 
side are called respectively the left auricle and the left 
ventricle. The right auricle receives all the venous blood 
of the body, and transmits it to the right ventricle ; the 
right ventricle drives the blood through the lungs where the 
blood is arterialized ; the left auricle receives the blood from 
the lungs, and transmits it to the left ventricle, which in 



44 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

turn drives it through the arterial tubes over the whole 
of the body, whence it returns again by the veins to the 
right side of the heart, and so on, in continuous circuit. 

Alcohol, therefore, entering the veins, makes its way in 
the course I have described through the right heart, 
through the lungs, through the left heart, through the 
body at large by the arteries. This is the course of its 
travel in the organism. What does it do as it makes the 
round ? 

As it passes through the circulation of the lungs it is 
exposed to the air, and some little of it, raised into vapor 
by the natural heat, is thrown off in expiration. If the 
quantity of it be large this loss may be considerable, and the 
odor of the spirit may be detected in the expired breath. 
If the quantity be small the loss will be comparatively little, 
as the spirit will be held in solution by the water in the 
blood. After it has passed through the lungs, and has been 
driven by the left heart over the arterial circuit, it passes 
into what is called the minute circulation, or the structural 
circulation of the organism. The arteries here extend into 
very small vessels, which are called arterioles, and from 
these infinitely small vessels spring the equally minute 
radicals or roots of the veins which are ultimately to 
become the great rivers bearing the blood back to the heart. 
In its passage through this minute circulation the alcohol 
finds its way to every organ. To this brain, to these mus- 
cles, to these secreting or excreting organs, nay even into 
this bony structure itself, it moves with the blood. In some 
of these parts which are not excreting, it remains for a time 
diffused, and in those parts where there is a large percentage 
of water it remains longer than in other parts. From some 
organs which have an open tube for conveying fluids away, 
the liver and kidneys, etc., it is thrown out or eliminated, 
and in this way a portion of it is ultimately removed from 
the body. The rest passing round and round with the cir- 
culation, is probably decomposed and carried off in new 
forms of matter; but concerning this, more on a future 
occasion . 

When we know the course which the alcohol takes in its 
passage through the body, from the period of its absorption 



III.] INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON ANIMAL LIFE. 45 

to that of its elimination, we are the better able to judge 
what physical changes it induces in the different organs and 
structures with which it comes in contact. It first reaches 
the blood, but, as a rule, the quantity of it that enters the 
blood is insufficient to produce any material effect on that 
fluid. If, however, the dose taken be poisonous or semi- 
poisonous, then even the blood, rich as it is in water — and 
it contains seven hundred and ninety parts in a thousand — 
is affected. The alcohol is diffused through this water, and 
there it comes in contact with the other constituent parts, 
with the fibrine, that plastic substance which, when blood is 
drawn, clots and coagulates, and which is present in the pro- 
portion of from two to three parts in a thousand ; with the 
albumen, which exists in the proportion of seventy parts ; 
with the salts, which yield about ten parts; with the fatty 
matters ; and lastly, with those minute, round bodies which 
float in myriads in the blood (which were discovered by the 
Dutch philosopher, Leuwenhoeck, as one of the first results 
of microscopical observation, about the middle of the seven- 
teenth century), and which are called the blood globules or 
corpuscles. These last named bodies are. in fact, cells ; 
their discs, when natural, have a smooth outline, they are 
depressed in the centre, and they are red in color ; the color 
of the blood being derived from them. We have discovered 
in recent years that there exist other corpuscles or cells in 
the blood in much smaller quantity, which are called white 
cells, and these different cells float in the blood-stream 
within the vessels. The red take the centre of the stream ; 
the white lie externally near the sides of the vessels, moving 
less quickly. Our business is mainly with the red corpuscles. 
They perforin the most important functions in the economy ; 
they absorb, in great part, the oxygen which we inhale in 
breathing, and carry it to the extreme tissues of the body ; 
they absorb, in great part, the carbonic acid gas which is 
produced in the combustion of the body in the extreme 
tissues, and bring that gas back to the lungs to be exchanged 
for oxygen there. 

With all these parts of the blood, with the water, fibrine, 
albumen, salts, fatty matter, and corpuscles, the alcohol 
comes in contact when it enters the blood, and, if it be in 



46 OJST ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

sufficient quantity, it produces disturbing action. I have 
watched this disturbance very carefully on the blood cor- 
puscles, for in some animals we can see these floating along 
during life, and we can also observe them from men who are 
under alcohol by removing a speck of blood, and examining 
it with the microscope. The action of the alcohol, when it 
is observable, is varied. It may cause the corpuscles to run 
too closely together, and to adhere in rolls; it may modify 
their outline, making the clear-defined smooth outer edge 
irregular or crenate, or even starlike ; it may change the 
round corpuscle into the oval form, or, in very extreme 
cases, it may produce what I may call a truncated form of cor- 
puscles, in which the change is so great that if we did not 
trace it through all its stages we should be puzzled to know 
whether the object looked at were indeed a blood-cell. All 
these changes are due to the action of the spirit upon the 
water contained in the corpuscles"; upon the capacity of the 
spirit to extract water from them. During every stage of 
modification of corpuscle thus described, their function to 
absorb and fix gases is impaired, and when the aggregation 
of the cells, in masses, is great, other difficulties arise, for 
the cells united together pass less easily than they should 
through the minute vessels of the lungs and of the general 
circulation, and impede the current, by which local injury is 
produced. 

A further action upon the blood instituted by alcohol in 
excess, is upon the hbrine, the plastic colloidal * matter. 
On this the spirit may act in two different ways, according 



* [Colloidal means jelly-like. In inorganic matter we may notice 
three forms. Water, solid (ice), liquid, and gaseous (steam), illus- 
trates the three forms. But organic matter exhibits the three forms 
of solid, colloidal, and liquid. The colloidal or jelly-like is always of 
organic origin, is always the concomitant of life, and though the 
colloidal form may remain after life has departed, colloidal sub- 
stances are always the product of organism, andlivdng organisms are 
always dependent upon colloidal forms of matter as a sine qua non. 
Colloidal forms exist all the way from an almost liquid up to an 
almost solid form, depending upon how large a proportion of water 
they contain. The colloids, fi brine and albumen in the blood, are 
dissolved in a very large proportion of water, so much that we call 
blood a liquid, while strictly it is a colloid.] 



Ill] INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON ANIMAL LIFE. 47 

to the degree in which it affects the water that holds the 
fibrine in solution. It may fix the water with the fibrine, 
and thus destroy the power of coagulation ; or it may extract 
the water so considerably as to produce coagulation. These 
facts bear on a new and refined subject of research with 
which I must not trouble you further, except to add that 
the inquiry explains why in acute cases of poisoning by 
alcohol the blood is sometimes found quite fluid, at other 
times firmly coagulated in the vessels. 

These are the only points I have time to touch upon in 
respect to the physical action of alcohol upon blood. I 
must pass next to blood-vessels, and trace out, the action 
upon those fine ramifications of the larger vessels which we 
call the minute circulation. Upon these parts the spirit 
exerts a singular influence, from which arise a series of 
phenomena, characteristic of action when even a moderate 
quantity of spirit is taken into the body. That we may 
follow out this position clearly, it is essential that I should 
for a few minutes put alcohol out of .sight altogether and 
describe the mechanism and governance of this minute circu- 
lating system. 

If any of you ever visited the Royal College of Physicians 
you wculd find there a system of blood-vessels dissected and 
traced out by the immortal discoverer of the circulation of 
the blood, William Harvey ; and I think it would strike 
you, as you looked on, that all the organs of the body, 
which constitute the body in its entirety, are built upon 
these minute vessels. It is as though Harvey had suggested 
the thought that the vascular system was the primary part 
of the animal organization, and that upon it were planted and 
developed all the structures. The arteries are all beautifully 
shown branching out into their extreme divisions and giving 
the outline of the limbs, of the brain, of the visceral parts, 
and of the other organs. The veins are seen springing or 
continuing from these extreme arterial parts, as rivers may 
be said to spring, and to form at last trunks of large and 
larger size by which they bring back the blood to the centre 
of the circulation to be vivified there and carried on again. 

From this distribution of blood in these minute vessels 
the structures of organs deiive their constituent parts ; 



48 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

through these vessels brain matter, muscle, gland, membrane, 
is given out from the blood by a refined process of selection 
of material, which up to this time is only so far understood 
as to enable us to say that it exists. 

The minute and intermediate vessels are more intimately 
connected than any other part with the construction and 
with the function of the living matter of which the body is 
composed. Think you that this mechanism is left uncon- 
trolled ? No ; the vessels, small as they are, are under dis- 
tinct control. Infinitely refined in structure, they neverthe- 
less have the power of contraction and dilatation, which 
power is governed by nervous action of a special kind. If 
we pass to the lower class of animals, we find, running 
along the body, in addition to its vascular system, a series of 
points of nervous matter, consisting of what are called 
ganglia. These ganglia are connected together in chain, and 
from them filaments of nerves emanate, which are distributed 
to all the active moving parts of the body. In such lower 
animals the nervous system thus described stands alone, 
and when we rise in the scale and come even to man we 
find still the same primitive nervous chain. But we find 
also now another and more highly developed nervous sys- 
tem, the centres of which are locked up in the brain and 
spinal column, from which centres nerves of special sense 
go into the organs of sense, nerves of sensibility or common 
sensation go to the skin and other sensitive surfaces, and 
nerves of voluntary motion go to the muscles, all combining 
to perform their respective functions in the animal economy. 

Thus man has two nervous systems : the primary nervous 
chain and the added centres, with their fibres. The tw T o 
systems are connected by their fibres in different parts, but 
they are still distinct, both anatomically and functionally. 
The primary nervous system is called the system of the 
organic, vegetative or animal life ; it governs all those 
motions which are purely involuntary. The centres of the 
brain and spinal cord, with their parts, are the centres of 
the motor and volitional and of the reasoning powers ; of 
all those faculties, that is to say, which are directly under 
the influence of the will. 

Keep in mind, if you please, the two nervous systems, 



III.] INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON ANIMAL LIFE. 49 

and add to the remembrance this fact, that all those minute 
blood-vessels at the extremities of the circulation are under 
the control of the primary or organic nervous supply. 
Branches of nerves from those organic centres accompany 
every arterial vessel throughout the body to its termination, 
and without direction from our will regulate the contraction 
and dilatation of the blood-vessels to their most refined dis- 
tribution. This fact was suspected by the older anatomists, 
but it remained for modern research to make it a demon- 
stration. Thus it has now been pro'ved that if the organic 
nervous supply of a part of the minute circulation be cut 
off by division of the organic nerve feeding that part, the 
vessels become paralyzed, as these flexor muscles of my 
hand, which now grasp so firmly, would be paralyzed were 
their voluntary nerves divided. 

It will be clear at once that an important advancement 
of knowledge respecting the course of the blood through 
the minute circulation has been gained ; but our knowledge 
does not rest at this point. When certain simple physical 
impressions are made upon the organic nerves, the disturb- 
ance of their supply is indicated by distant phenomena, and 
the blush which mantles, and the pallor which overspreads 
the cheek, under the influence of mental emotion or shock, 
are phenomena of this order. 

I can bring to your notice an experiment, showing the 
production of paralysis, and of all the phenomena above 
quoted, by the mere action of cold upon the organic nervous 
fibre. By evaporating ether from the back of my hand 
quickly, I can freeze the skin, and thereby produce paralysis. 
I take the ether away, and now into the paralyzed vessels, 
which are capable of offering no efficient resistance, the 
blood rushes, distending the vessels, remaining for a moment 
stagnant in them, and giving a brilliant red color or crimson 
blush over the part. I feel in this part the glow commonly 
called hot-ache ; it is the blush which oocurs on the cheek, 
and it is from the same physiological condition. 

Still further in advance, and with the mention of the 

fact, I am brought back to the subject proper of my lecture ; 

we have learned that certain chemical agents can so influence 

the organic nervous chain as to disturb its functions, after 

3 



50 OJST ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

the manner of a pure physical act. When the peculiar fluid 
the nitrite of amyl, to which I have before called your 
attention, came before me for investigation, I divined, from 
the symptoms it produced, that it influenced the organic 
nervous fibre precisely after the manner of a division of 
that fibre. I dipped a spill of paper into the liquid, brought 
that near to my nose, inhaled the vapor, and immediately 
felt my face in a red glow, as you see it again at this moment, 
and felt my heart beating rapidly, as I feel it beating at the 
present time. I reasoned, naturally, and as events proved, 
correctly, that this fluid, by its action on the organic nerves, 
paralyzed the vessels of the minute circulation, and finding 
this to obtain with one chemical agent I traced it in others, 
and found a class of chemical substances, all of which have 
this same property of relaxing the blood-vessels at their 
extreme parts. The whole series of the nitrites possess this 
power ; ether possesses it ; but the great point I want to 
bring forth from this description is, that the substance we 
are specially dealing with, alcohol, possesses the self-same 
power. By this influence it produces all those peculiar ef- 
fects which in e very-day life are so frequently illustrated. 
It paralyzes the minute blood-vessels, and allows them to 
become dilated with the flowing blood. 

If you attend a large dinner party, you will observe after 
the first few courses, when the wine is beginning to circu- 
late, a progressive change in some of those about you who 
have taken wine. The face begins to get flushed, the eye 
brightens, and the murmur of conversation becomes loud. 
What is the reason of that flushing of the countenance ? It 
is the same as the flush from blushing, or from the reaction 
of cold, or from the nitrite of amyl. It is the dilatation of 
vessels following upon the reduction of nervous control, 
which reduction has been induced by the alcohol. In a word, 
the first stage, the stage of what is called vascular excite- 
ment from alcohol, has been established. 

The action of the alcohol extending so far does not stop 
there. With the disturbance of power in the extreme ves- 
sels, more disturbance is set up in other organs, and the first 
organ that shares in it is the heart. With each beat of the 
heart a certain degree of resistance is offered by the vessels 



III.] INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON ANIMAL LIFE. 51 

when their nervous supply is perfect, and the stroke of the 
heart is moderated in respect both to tension and to time. 
But when the vessels are rendered relaxed, the resistance is 
removed, the heart begins to run quicker, like a watch from 
which the pallets have been removed, and the heart-stroke, 
losing nothing in force, is greatly increased in' frequency, 
with a weakened recoil stroke. It is easy to account in this 
manner for the quickened heart and pulse which accompany 
the first stage of deranged action from alcohol, and you will 
be interested to know to what extent this increase of vascu- 
lar action proceeds. The information on this point is ex- 
ceedingly curious and important. After I had observed 
the effect of alcohol on the circulation generally, I attempted 
to calculate the rate at which it expedited the rate of circu- 
lation by observing its effect on the beat of the heart in the 
pigeon. Alcohol may be administered to this bird quittv 
painlessly, and, as the animal quickly goes to sleep under 
the influence, and is therefore perfectly quiet, the beatings 
of its heart can be calculated with precision. I traced in 
these observations an increase of beats of the heart amount- 
ing, in the course of two hours, to one-fourth beyond what 
was natural. Then I essayed to make researches on myself, 
but many circumstances intervened, connected with the per- 
sistent labor and anxiety of professional life, which pre- 
vented me from conducting the necessary operations as cor- 
rectly as I desired, and as I might perhaps at another time 
have done. Fortunately, the information has been far more 
ably supplied by the researches of Dr. Parkes, of Netley, 
and the late Count Wollowicz. The researches of these dis- 
tinguished inquirers are so valuable that I make no apology 
for giving them in detail. The observers conducted their 
inquiries on the young and healthy adult man. They 
counted the beats of the heart, first at regular intervals, 
during what were called water periods, that is to say, 
periods when the subject under observation drank nothing 
but water; and next, taking still the same subject, they 
counted the beats of the heart during successive periods in 
which alcohol was taken in increasing quantities. Thus 
step by step they measured the precise action of alcohol 
on the heart, and thereby the precise primary influence 



52 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

induced by alcohol. Their results are stated by themselves 
as follows: — 

"The average number of beats of the heart in 24 hours 
(as calculated from eight observations made in 14 hours), 
during the first, or water period, was 106,000 ; in the earlier 
alcoholic period it was 127,000 or about 21,000 more ; and 
in the later period it was 131,000 or 25,000 more. 

" The highest of the daily means of the pulse observed 
during the first or water period was 77*5 ; but on this day 
two observations are deficient. The next highest daily mean 
was 77 beats. 

" If, instead of the mean of the eight days, or 73*57, we 
compare the mean of this one day, viz., 77 beats per minute, 
with the alcoholic days, so as to be sure not to over-estimate 
the action of the alcohol, we find : — 

" On the 9th day, with one fluid ounce of alcohol, the 
heart beat 4,300 times more. 

" On the 10th day, with two fluid ounces, 8,172 times more. 

"On the 11th day, with four fluid ounces, 12,960 times 
more. 

" On the 12th day, with six fluid ounces, 30,672 times 
more. 

" On the 13th day, with eight fluid ounces, 23,904 times 
more. 

" On the 14th day, with eight fluid ounces, 25,488 times 
more. 

u But as there was ephemeral fever on the 12th day, it is 
right to make a deduction, and to estimate the number of 
beats in that day as midway between the 11th and 13th 
days, or 18,432. Adopting this, the mean daily excess of 
beats during the alcoholic days was 14,492, or an increase 
of rather more than 13 per cent. 

" The first day of alcohol gave an excess of 4 per cent., 
and the last of 23 per cent. ; and the mean of these two 
gives almost the same percentage of excess as the mean of 
the six days. 

" Admitting that each beat of the heart was as strong 
during the alcoholic period as in the water* period (and it 
was really more powerful), the heart on the last two days of 
alcohol was doing one-fifth more work. 



III.] INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON ANIMAL LIFE. 53 

" Adopting the lowest estimate which has been given of 
the daily work of the heart, viz., as equal to 122 tons lifted 
one foot, the heart during the alcoholic period, did daily 
work in excess equal to lifting 15*3 tons one foot, and in the 
last two days did extra work to the amount of 24 tons lifted 
as far. 

" The period of rest for the heart was shortened, though, 
perhaps, not to such an extent as would be inferred from 
the number of beats, for each contraction was sooner over. 
The heart, on the fifth and sixth days after alcohol was left 
off, and apparently at the time when the last traces of alco- 
hol were eliminated, showed in the sphygmographic tracings 
signs of unusual feebleness; and, perhaps, in consequence 
of this, when the brandy quickened the heart again, the 
tracings showed a more rapid contraction of the ventricles, 
but less power than in the alcoholic period. The brandy 
acted, in fact, on a heart the nutrition of which had not 
been perfectly restored." 

It will seem at first sight almost incredible that such an 
excess of work could be put upon the heart, but it is per- 
fectly credible when all the facts are known. The heart of 
an adult man makes, as we see above, 73*57* strokes per 
minute. This number multiplied by sixty for the hour, and 
again by twenty-four hours for the entire day, would give 
nearly 106,000 as the number of strokes per day. There is, 
however, a reduction of stroke produced by assuming the 
recumbent position and by sleep, so that for simplicity's 
sake we may take off the 6,000 strokes, and speaking gene- 
rally may put the average at 100,000 in the entire day. 
With each of these strokes the two ventricles of the heart, 
as they contract, lift up into their respective vessels three 
ounces of blood each, that is to say, six ounces with the 
combined stroke, or 600,000 in the twenty-four hours. The 
equivalent of work rendered by this simpler calculation 
would be 116 foot tons; and if we estimate the increase of 
work induced by alcohol we shall find that four ounces of 



* In the United States the beats of the heart in health average 
to be higher in number. 



54 OJST ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



spirit increase it one-eighth part ; six ounces, one-sixth part ; 
and eight ounces, one-fourth part. 

The stage of primary excitement of the circulation thus 
induced lasts for a considerable time, but at length the heart 
Hags from its over-action, and requires the stimulus of more 
spirit to carry it on in its work. Let us take what we may 
call a moderate amount of alcohol, say two ounces by vol- 
ume, in form of wine, or beer, or spirits. What is called 
strong sherry or port may contain as much as twenty-five 
per cent, by volume. Brandy over fifty, gin, thirty-eight ; 
rum, forty-eight ; whiskey, forty-three ; vin ordinaire, eight ; 
strong ale, fourteen ; champagne, ten to eleven ; it matters 
not which, if the quantity of alcohol be regulated by the 
amount present in the liquor imbibed. When we reach the 
two ounces, a distinct physiological effect follows, leading on 
to that first stage of excitement with which we are now con- 
versant; but, if the quantity imbibed be increased, further 
changes quickly occur. We have seen that all the organs 
of the body are built upon the vascular structures, and 
therefore it follows that a prolonged paralysis of the minute 
circulation must of necessity lead to disturbance in other 
organs than the heart. 

By common observation the flush seen on the cheek dur- 
ing the first stage of alcoholic excitation is presumed to ex- 
tend mereiy to the parts actually exposed to view. It can- 
not, however, be too forcibly impressed that the condition 
is universal in the body. If the lungs could be seen, they 
too would be found with their vessels injected ; if the brain 
and spinal cord could be laid open to view, they would be 
discovered in the same condition ; if the stomach, the liver, 
the spleen, the kidneys, or any other vascular organs or parts 
could be exposed, the vascular engorgement would be equally 
manifest. In the lower animals I have been able to witness 
this extreme vascular condition in the lungs, and there are 
here presented to you two drawings from nature, showing, 
one the lungs in a natural state of an animal killed by a 
sudden blow, the other the lungs of an animal killed equally 
suddenly, but at a time when it was under the influence of 
alcohol. You will see, as if you were looking at the struc- 
tures themselves, how different they are in respect to the 



III. ] INFL UENOE OF ALCOHOL ON AN IMA L LIFE. 55 

blood which they contained, how intensely charged with 
blood is the lung in which the vessels had been paralyzed by 
the alcoholic spirit. 

I once had the unusual, though unhappy opportunity of 
observing the same phenomenon in the brain structure of a 
man who, in a paroxysm of alcoholic excitement, decapitated 
himself under the wheel of a railway carriage, and whose 
brain was instantaneously evolved from the skull by the 
crash. The brain itself, entire, was before me within three 
minutes after the death. It exhaled the odor of spirit 
most distinctly, and its membranes and minute structures 
were vascular in the extreme. It looked as if it had been 
recently injected with vermilion. The white matter of the 
cerebrum was so studded with red points, that it could 
scarcely be distinguished, when it was incised, by its natural 
whiteness ; and the pia mater, or internal vascular membrane 
covering the brain, resembled a delicate web of coagulated 
red blood, so tensely were its fine vessels engorged. 

I should add that this condition extended through both 
the larger and the smaller brain, the cerebrum and cerebellum, 
but was not so marked in the medulla or commencing por- 
tion of the spinal cord. 

The action of alcohol continued beyond the first stage, 
the function of the spinal cord is influenced. Through this 
part of the nervous system we are accustomed, in health, to 
perform automatic acts of a mechanical kind, which proceed 
systematically even when we are thinking or speaking on 
other subjects. Thus a skilled workman will continue his 
mechanical work perfectly, while his mind is bent on some 
other subject. Thus we all perform various acts in a 
purely automatic way, without calling in the aid of the 
higher centres, except something more than ordinary occurs 
to demand their service, upon which we think before we 
perform. Under alcohol, as the spinal centres become influ- 
enced, these pure automatic acts cease to be correctly carried 
on. That the hand may reach any object, or that the foot 
be correctly planted, the higher intellectual centre must be 
invoked to make the proceeding secure. There follows 
quickly upon this a deficient power of co-ordination of mus- 
cular movement. The nervous control of certain of the 



5(3 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

muscles is lost, and the nervous stimulus is more or less en- 
feebled. The muscles of the lower lip in the human subject 
usually fail first of all, then the muscles of the lower limbs, 
and it is worthy of remark that the extensor muscles give 
way earlier than the flexors. The muscles themselves by 
this time are also failing in power ; they respond more feebly 
than is natural to the nervous stimulus ; they, too, are com- 
ing under the depressing influence of the paralyzing agent, 
their structure is temporarily deranged, and their contractile 
power reduced. 

This modification of the animal functions under alcohol 
marks the second degree of its action. In young subjects 
there is now, usually, vomiting with faintness, followed by 
gradual relief from the burden of the poison. 

The alcoholic spirit carried yet a further degree, the 
cerebral or brain centres become influenced ; they are reduced 
in power, and the controlling influences of will and of judg- 
ment are lost. As these centres are unbalanced and thrown 
into chaos, the rational part of the nature of the man gives 
way before the emotional, passional, or organic part. The 
reason is now off duty, or is fooling with duty, and all the 
mere animal instincts and sentiments are laid atrociously 
bare. The coward shows himself more craven, the braggart 
more boastful, the cruel more merciless, the untruthful more 
false, the carnal more degraded. " In vino Veritas " ex- 
presses even indeed to physiological accuracy, the true con- 
dition. The reason, the emotions, the instincts, are all in a 
state of carnival, a*nd in chaotic feebleness. 

Finally, the action of the alcohol still extending, the 
superior brain centres are overpowered ; the senses are be- 
clouded, the voluntary muscular prostration is complete, 
sensibility is lost, and the body lies a mere log, dead by all 
but one-fourth, on which alone its life hangs. The heart 
still remains true to its duty, and while it j ust lives it feeds 
the breathing power. And so the circulation and the res- 
piration, in the otherwise inert mass, keeps the mass within 
the bare domain of life until the poison begins to pass away 
and the nervous centres to revive again. It is well for the 
inebriate that, as a rule, the brain fails so long before the 
heart thai he has neither the power nor the sense to con- 



TIL] INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON ANIMAL LIFE. 57 

tirme his process of destruction up to the act of the death of 
his circulation. Therefore he lives to die another day. 

Thus there are four stages of alcoholic action in the primary 
form : — (a) A stage of vascular excitement and exhaustion ; 
(b) a stage of excitement and exhaustion of the spinal cord, 
with muscular perturbation ; (c) a stage of unbalanced rea- 
soning power and of volition ; [d) a stage of complete col- 
lapse of nervous function. 

Such is an outline of the primary action of alcohol on 
those who may be said to be unaccustomed to it, or who have 
not yet fallen into a fixed habit of taking it. For a long 
time the organism will bear these perversions of its functions 
without apparent injury, but if the experiment be repeated 
too often and too long, if it be continued after the term of 
life when the body is fully developed, when the elasticity of 
the membranes and of the blood-vessels is lessened, and 
when the tone of the muscular fibre is reduced, then organic 
series of structural changes, so characteristic of the per- 
sistent eflecis of spirit, become prominent and permanent. 
Then the external surface becomes darkened and congested, 
its vessels, in parts, visibly large ; the skin becomes blotched, 
the proverbial red nose is defined, and those other striking 
vascular changes which disfigure mauy who may probably 
be called moderate users of alcoholics, are developed. These 
changes, belonging as they do to external surfaces, come 
under direct observation ; they are accompanied with certain 
other changes in the internal organs, which we shall discover 
in a future lecture to be more destructive still. 

3* 



58 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



LECTURE IV. 

THE POSITION OF ALCOHOL AS A FOOD. EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL 
I ON THE ANIMAL TEMPERATURE. HYGIENIC LESSONS. 

The question that lies before us for discussion in this lecture 
is short and definite. It is included in the three words : Is 
alcohol food ? 

We have studied in the previous lecture the purely phys- 
ical action of alcohol on the animal body, that which stands 
apart from the action of food, and we have learned from the 
study that over the nervous system and over the vascular 
supply this spirit exerts a specific influence. We now in- 
quire whether the influence ends there, or whether there may 
be, in addition, either a sustaining, and constructing, or a 
heat-giving power — that is to say, a force-giving quality in 
it. If there be, then the simple physical effects are perchance 
tolerable, or at all events are not sufficient to militate against 
the advantages which lie on the food side of the question. 

It may be well to rest for a monierrt to consider the posi- 
tion of men and animals upon the eartlfin relation to the 
means given to them for their support as living, moving, 
and, in the higher animals, thinking structures. This posi- 
tion is well defined. The theory that man was made origin- 
ally out of the dust of the earth is, after all, the most scien- 
tific theory that has ever been advanced as to his primeval 
origin, if the word dust be only extended so as to include 
the actual compound substance of the earth. For in the 
earth are to be found not only all the elements out of which 
he is constructed, but even certain of the elements in the 
same kind of combination as we find them in him. In the 
earth water, salts, and organic matter are found ; in man the 
same are found. The man is in many respects of motion a 
reflex of the motion of the earth, presenting periodicities 
of movements, and of movements in a circle in like mode. 
As if to complete the analogy, this remains true, that the 



IV.] THE POSITION OF ALCOHOL AS A FOOD. 59 

earth yields spontaneously to man, either from herself 
directly or from the vegetable kingdom which Kes between 
her and man, all the requirements for his existence. What- 
ever, therefore, man invents, though it may seem to be a 
great necessity, is not a necessity except to those who, being 
trained to its use, have been Jed artificially to believe it 
essential. Thus nature has produced water and milk for 
man to drink, and they are, in truth, all the fluids that are 
essential. This lesson, which nature teaches by her rule of 
provision for the necessities of animal life, is supplemented 
by many other facts, each equally authoritative. There is 
ever before us the great experiment that all classes of living 
beings beneath man require as drink none other fluids except 
those I have named. We see the most useful of these ani- 
mals performing laborious tasks, undergoing extremes of 
fatigue, bearing vicissitudes of heat and of cold, and endur- 
ing work, fatigue, and vicissitude for long series of years, 
sustained by their solid food, with no other fluid than simple 
water. We see again whole nations and races of men who 
labor hard, endure fatigue and exposure, and who live to 
the end of a long and healthy life, taking with their solid 
sustenance water only as a beverage. 

When we turn to the physiological construction either of 
man or of a lower animal, we discover nothing that can lead 
us to conceive the necessity for any other fluid, than that 
which nature has supplied. The mass of the blood is com- 
posed of water, the mass of the nervous system is composed 
of water, the mass of all the active vital organs is made up 
of the same fluid ; the secretions are watery fluids, and if in 
any of these parts any other agent than water should replace 
it, the result is an instant disturbance of function that is in- 
jurious in proportion to the displacement. 

When we turn therefore to the use of such a fluid as 
alcohol under any of its disguises — spirit, wine, beer, cider, 
perry, liqueur, — we are driven a priori to look upon it as 
something superadded to the necessities of life ; to look upon 
it, in a word, as a luxury. In such sens© it has always been 
received amongst those nations which have most indulged 
in it. It is something added to the ordinary life ; something 
unnecessary, but agreeable. Wine, added to the meal, 



60 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

transforms the meal into a feast ; it is supposed to make 
glad the heart, but it is never supposed that if the wine 
were not possessed the life would be shortened. When now 
we offer wine, it is, by the effect of habit and education, an 
offering of a thing that is supernecessitous, and in such wise 
a compliment, an indication of desire or of willingness to be 
exceedingly hospitable. 

All the evidence of a general kind which can be gathered 
from these observations points to the uselessness, for man, 
of such an artificial agent as alcohol. But, after all, an as- 
sumption so derived may be false. We have already seen 
that when alcoholic spirit is taken into the animal body it 
produces in it exceedingly marked effects ; it may therefore, 
by accident, I might almost say, play in some manner the 
part of a food and supplement water. Indeed, it is a form 
of water in which a compound of carbon and hydrogen has 
replaced hydrogen. Let us, then, ask the question : Can 
alcohol be in any sense accepted as performing any other 
part in the body save that physical part which we have con- 
sidered ? Can it have happened that man, by his invention, 
has added, to nature, a food ? And let us ansv/er the ques- 
tion as candidly as the facts of experiment and experience 
will permit. 

CONSTRUCTIVE MATERIALS OF THE BODY. 

The living animal body is constructed out of a few simple 
forms of matter which possess, during life the power of 
motion. It is, in its living state, a noun and a verb. What- 
ever helps to maintain it in perfect order of construction, 
whatever enables it to move of its own mere will and motion, 
may be considered as a food. The one gives matter, and 
mass, the other gives force or spirit to the mass. With the 
progress of organic chemistry, after the discovery of the art 
of organic analysis, it soon became evident that what are 
called foods are divisible into two great classes ; those 
which supply material or tissue, and those which supply 
heat or other variety of force. Gradually it was detected 
that the building foods all contain the element nitrogen 
as an essential part, and that the force- supplying foods 



IV.] THE POSITION OF ALCOHOL AS A FOOD. 01 

are free of nitrogen and are hydro-carbons, substances that 
will undergo combustion by oxidation, and liberate force 
for the motive uses of the economy. So, foods have for a 
long time been sharply classified as nitrogenous or tissue- 
feeding, and as heat-producing. At the present moment 
this long accepted view is undergoing some modification. 
It is being elicited that the nitrogenous foods are to a cer- 
tain degree heat-producing ; but I need not at this stage 
enter on the nice question involved. I may safely, for the 
practical purpose we have in view, let the division of the 
classes of foods remain as described above. 

The nitrogenous foods exist in the animal body in the 
form of what is called colloidal matter, the word colloidal 
being a term signifying a jelly-like substance. The purest 
form of this matter is found in the blood in the white, elas- 
tic, plastic matter, called fibrine. By repeated washings of a 
portion of this substance, I have prepared here, from the 
blood of the ox, a beautiful specimen of this colloid of the 
blood. Of a similar colloidal substance the moving muscles 
are formed. In a fluid state, and permanently fluid at the 
temperature of the living body, the colloid called albumen 
forms part of organic structure. Under the names of gela- 
tine and chondrine, a nitrogenous colloidal substance forms 
the organic matter of the skeleton, of the cartilages, of the 
sheaths of muscles, of the tendons. The eye-ball is con- 
structed out of a series of colloidal tissues. All the mem- 
branes which envelope the visceral organs, and which possess 
elasticity, are colloidal. The outer covering or skin is colloi- 
dal, the nails are the same. Even in the brain and ner- 
vous matter there is distributed a colloid. Thus, if we sum 
up the various parts of the body we may say that all the 
active masses of structure are nitrogenous and are colloidal. 

In combination with this active matter there are, how- 
ever, two other material ingredients, viz., water and saline 
substance. Upon its combination with water the activity 
of the colloid depends. Upon the saline rests the various 
kinds of combination of the colloid with the water. In bone 
the gelatine is combined with a salt, called phosphate of 
lime, with carbonate of lime, and other salts, in much larger 
proportion than itself. In fibrine the colloidal substance is 



ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



nearly divested of saline ; but in all parts these three ma- 
terial compounds make up the animal structures. 

Lying outside these structures in the natural state, but 
really as an adventitious formation is one pther animal 
product, viz., fat ; a substance detrimental to the motion of 
the active parts when present in excess, but at the same 
time capable of combustion, and of yielding heat by the 
process. 

We have now before us the constructive or building parts 
of the animal body. Excepting the water, the salts, and the 
fat, they all contain nitrogen, and they take their specific 
quality from that specific fact. We know that the source 
of them is the vegetable kingdom, that they are formed by 
nature in that kingdom, are transferred from the vegetable 
to the animal, are not made by any natural process within 
the animal, have not yet been made by any artificial process 
known to the chemist, and can therefore only be supplied 
from the one natural supply. 

Alcohol contains no nitrogen, it has none of the qualities 
of these structure-building foods ; it is incapable of being 
transformed into any of them ; it is therefore not a food in 
the sense of its being a constructive agent in the building 
up of the body. 

In respect to this view there is, I believe, now no dif- 
ference of opinion amongst those who have most carefully 
observed the action of alcohol. There is, however, a differ- 
ence in relation to its action as a fat-forming food. It 
appears to be on evidence that men and animals beginning, 
while in a perfect state of health, to take in excess certain 
fluids containing alcohol become fattened. Notoriously, ale 
and beer fatten ; and in some parts of the country certain 
animals — calves for instance — are rapidly fattened by the 
process of feeding them with a mixture of barley flour and 
gin. But through all these apparent evidences there may 
run an error. The fattening may not be due to the alcohol 
itself, but to the sugar or the starchy material that is taken 
with it. As a matter of general experience on which I have 
tried to arrive at the truth with as much accuracy as can be 
obtained, I am led to the conclusion that pure spirit drinkers 
among men, I mean those who do not mix sugar with the 



IV. ] THE POSITION OF AL COBOL AS A FO OB. 63 

spirit, and who dislike spirit which is artificially sweetened, 
are not fattened by the spirit they take. This tallies also 
with the observations on the action of absolute alcohol on 
inferior animals, for they certainly, under that influence ii 
they are allowed liberty to move freely, do not fatten. 

The question of the effect of alcohol in fattening presents 
still another difficulty. Alcohol, when it is largely taken, 
unless the will of the imbiber be very powerful, is wont to 
induce desire for undue sleep, or at least desire for physical 
repose. Under such conditions there is an interference with 
the ordinary nutritive processes. The wasted products of 
nutrition are imperfectly eliminated, the respiration be- 
comes slower and less effective, and there is set up a series 
of changes leading, independently of the alcohol as a direct 
producer of fat, to development and to deposit of fatty tis- 
sue in the body. All these circumstances militate against 
the hypothesis of the origin of fatty material direct from al- 
cohol, nor is there any obvious chemical fact that supports 
the hypothesis. We understand chemically the transformation 
of starchy matter into one form of sugar, and we infer that 
in the animal body sugar is transmutable into fat. We know 
also that we can transmute sugar into alcohol, but as yet 
we see no way back from alcohol into sugar ; if we did, 
the difficulty of tracing alcohol into fat would probably be 
over. 

Physiological argument nevertheless lends some coun- 
tenance to the view that alcohol may, by an unknown pro- 
cess, be transferable into fat. It is true that some confirmed 
alcoholics who do not wax fat in the ordinary sense of the 
term, that is to say, who do not fill out with fat, from the 
separation of fatty matter in their cellular tissue outside 
the vital organs, do, in certain instances, undergo a process 
of fatty change within their organic structures. Their 
muscles, including the heart, become the centres of the 
degeneration called " fatty," and by the interposition of 
cells of fat in the minute muscular elements, the activity 
of the fabric is destroyed, sometimes to a fatal destruction. 
The same degenerative change may extend also to other 
organs, to the brain and to such active glands as the liver 
and the kidney. 



G4 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

At first view it occurs to the mind that here is evidence 
of effect from cause. At the same time it is not so clear 
that the effect is direct from alcohol ; for when we proceed 
to examine into all the data that lie before us, we discover 
such an absence of uniformity in differing examples of the 
fatty change that we lose alcohol as the clue to discovery. 
Some users of alcoholics present the fatty modification of 
tissue, others do not, so that alcohol may be in active opera- 
tion and may be neither promoting the production of fat 
from other material nor yielding ifc. Lastly, the fatty change 
of tissue mav progress, in the absence of alcohol in the tis- 
sues of those who altogether abstain. 

In conclusion, therefore, on this one point of alcohol, its 
use as a builder of the substantial parts of the animal or- 
ganism, I fear I must give up all hope of affirmative proof. 
It does not certainly help to build up the active nitrogenous 
structures. It probably does not produce fatty matter, 
except by an indirect and injurious interference with the 
natural processes. 

If alcohol be not a substance out of which the animal 
tissues are formed, may it not be a source of energy of actual 
motion ; may it not supply the power of doing work ? 
Alcohol, we see, contains two elements that will burn in the 
presence of oxygen, viz., carbon and hydrogen, and although 
by their combination with oxygen in the alcohol a certain 
measure of their potential energy is lost, they are still capa- 
ble of combining with more oxygen. This is proved by 
various experiments. When alcohol is burned, that is to 
say, when, its combustible elements combine with free 
oxygen, there results from the chemical combination a cer- 
tain degree of heat. The heat produced does not approach 
that obtained by an equal weight of hydrogen, it is not so 
great as that produced by an equal weight of carbon, but it 
is greater than that caused by the combustion of phosphorus, 
and very much greater than that caused by the combustion 
of sulphur. 

The combustion thus spoken of is that active combustion 
which is excited when a light is brought into contact with 
alcohol so that its vapor may burn. But it is not actually 
necessary that such instant active combustion should be set 



IV.] DISPOSAL OF ALCOHOL IN THE ORGANISM. 65 

up. If we distribute alcohol over a wide surface in the 
presence of some chemical substances it will then by its 
combination with oxygen liberate a greater or lesser degree 
of heat. If we saturate a portion of paper with alcohol, and 
on that paper pour a little of the finely-divided powder called 
platinum black, we. at once get evidence of heat which may 
be so active that perfect combustion may ensue. In this 
instance the alcohol is transformed, as in burning, in great 
part, nay, it may be altogether, into carbonic acid and 
water, which means the completed combustion. If in place 
of absolute alcohol, in this experiment, we were to use alco- 
hol diluted with water, then instead of obtaining the active 
combination and combustion we should get a slower oxida- 
tion with the production of substances to which attention 
has already been directed, viz., aldehyde, acetic acid, and 
volatile acetic ether. 



DISPOSAL OF ALCOHOL IN THE ORGANISM. 

We are brought now to one of the most important parts 
of our study. We see that, under favoring conditions, alco- 
hol will oxidize in the presence of the air. We see that it 
will oxidize in two ways — actively, with the production of 
much heat and with the formation of carbonic acicl and 
water ; passively, with the production of aldehyde and 
acetic acid. 

In the human body do any similar changes take place ? 
Throughout the whole of the vast sheet of the minute cir- 
culation there is ever in progress, during life, a process of 
slow oxidation of carbon and hydrogen, by which heat is 
produced, and carbonic acid and water are produced. The 
heat is proved by the animal warmth which is ever present 
in our bodies while we live ; the carbonic acid and water, as 
products, are proved by their continued presence in the 
secretions from the lungs, skin, and other organs. 

Alcohol, we have seen, is carried by the blood into this 
minute circulation. Is it possible it can pass through that 
ordeal and undergo no chemical change ? If it does undergo 
any change, what is its nature ? These questions have occu- 



66 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

pied the attention of many gifted minds ; but they are not 
yet solved. Let me endeavor to put the position in which 
they stand plainly before you. 

The earlier physiologists of this century came, naturally 
enough, to the conclusion that the alcohol taken into the 
body is consumed there with the evolution of heat. A 
certain development of heat in the superficies of the body, 
and a certain sensation of glow which follows upon the 
imbibition of spirit lent countenance to this suspicion. But 
in course of time, independently of any knowledge of the 
effect produced by alcohol in the minute circulation of the 
blood, it began to be doubted whether alcohol was disposed 
of in the organism by its combustion. Some observers had 
noticed, in conducting the examination of the body after 
death from excess of alcohol, that the odor of the substance 
was present in the tissues, especially in the nervous tissue, 
and it was doubted whether the alcohol might not under 
some circumstances remain in the organism without under- 
going any change at all. In I860 two eminent Frenchmen 
— Lallemand and Perrin, assisted by Duroy, published a 
prize essay on alcohol, in which this view was maintained, 
or, as the authors would probably say, was originated ; for 
in truth they were the first to state the view on direct sci- 
entific evidence. From the result of many experiments, 
they came to the conclusion that alcohol taken into the liv- 
ing body accumulates in the tissues, especially in the liver 
and in the brain, and that it is eliminated by the fluid 
secretions, notably by the renal secretion, as alcohol. They 
sought in the different tissues for evidence of the secondary 
products of the oxidation of alcohol, for aldehyde, acetal, 
acetic acid, and they found none of those products, except 
some acetic acid in the stomach, which acid they concluded 
was formed from the alcohol received directly into the stom- 
ach, and from the action exerted upon it there by the 
gastric juice. The experiments carried on by these inquirers 
were so numerous and careful, and the results they arrived 
at were so definitely stated, that their labors were for a 
season accepted as conclusive by many men of science, and 
by the majority of the public. It was ascertained by other 
experimentalists that alcohol is eliminated by the system in 



IV.] DISPOSAL OF ALCOHOL W THE ORGANISM. 67 

the direct way, as alcohol, and the question of the elimina- 
tion rested as if it had been solved. 

The interval of credence in these assertions was not very 
prolonged. An English physician soon commenced to cross 
a lance with his learned French peers, and to point out cer- 
tain distinct errors in their results. I have no doubt many 
of you know, before I mention his name, that he to whom I 
refer was the physician who last year lost his life from the 
performance of his professional duties — the late Dr. Anstie. 
Respecting this observer, whose friendship I had for many 
years, it is meet for me to pay this public tribute of respect ; 
that no man I ever knew combined with vigor of mind, 
more incomparable industry and courage, or a more honor- 
able regard for scientific truth and honesty. The subject 
we are now considering has lost no investigator more ably 
learned for the work that still remains to be done. 

From Dr. Anstie came the earliest expressions of doubt 
relative to this hypothesis of what is called the direct 
elimination of alcohol by the secretions, and from him have 
come the latest objections. His arguments have been sus- 
tained abroad by Schulinus, and, in this country, by Drs. 
Thudichum and Dupre, whose work on wine will, even in 
another century, be more highly prized, if that be possible, 
than it is now. The sum and substance of the labors of 
these observers is stated in a few words. They prove that 
while it is true that, under certain circumstances, alcohol 
taken into the body will pass off in the secretions unchanged, 
the quantity so eliminated is the merest fraction of what has 
been injected, and that there must be some other means by 
which the spirit is disposed of in the organism. In a lecture 
I delivered on this subject in the year 1869, I ventured to 
suggest, in commenting upon a series of Dr. Thudichum's 
remarkable researches, that perhaps one element of research 
was wanting to prove conclusively the fallacy of the direct 
elimination hypothesis. I thought that sufficient time had 
not been allowed between the administration of the spirit 
and the final determination made for it in the excreted fluids. 
It was not, I argued, shown how much spirit the tissues 
would hold unchanged. The objection was sound, but it has 
been removed by more recent experiments. 



ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



In the last research conducted by Anstie, in which he 
was assisted by Dupre, the results of the experiments were 
unmistakable in their bearing on the points now under our 
consideration. The history of these labors is recorded in 
full in the last paper written by Dr. Anstie, and published 
in the journal called the Practitioner, for July, 1874. 

The test that had been commonly employed for determin- 
ing the presence of alcohol in the fluid suspected of contain- 
ing it, was the color test. A solution is made consisting of 
bichromate of potassa, with diluted sulphuric acid. When 
to this solution alcohol is added, there is a change of color 
from the brownish red to green ; owing to the reduction of 
the chromic acid to the green oxide of the base chromium. 
By marking the difference of color produced a scale can be 
adopted, which will show the extent of the reduction, and 
thereby the amount of the spirit that has caused the change. 
This process was improved by Dr. Dupre. He distilled the 
fluid in which alcohol w^as believed to be present, and then 
after treating the distillate w r ith the bichromate and sul- 
phuric acid solution, he tested with a standard solution of 
soda for the amount of acetic acid which would be produced 
by the oxidation of alcohol w T ere that fluid present. 

This modification of test was and is a very considerable 
advance, since it enabled the observers to extend their de- 
terminations with greater accuracy of detail. 

A statement w T hich came chiefly from the labors of Dr. 
Anstie, is that from animals under alcohol, not one of the 
secretions, not all the secretions combined, yield any more 
than a fractional amount of the alcohol that has been ad- 
ministered. The experiments were by necessity made on the 
inferior animals, but they supplied none the less conclusively 
the fact stated. It was proved that an animal, a terrier 
dog, weighing ten pounds, could take with comparative im- 
punity nearly 2000 grains of absolute alcohol in ten days, 
and that on the last day of this regimen he only eliminated 
by all the channels of elimination 1-13 grains of alcohol. 
This fact was of itself sufficiently remarkable, but another 
still more important remains to be told. In completion of his 
research, when an animal had been treated with alcohol, as 
above described, Anstie killed it, instantly and painlessly, 



IV.] DISPOSAL OF ALCOHOL IN THE ORGANISM. 69 

two hours after it had received the last quantity — 95 grains 
— of spirit. Then the whole body, including every fragment 
of tissue with all the fluid and solid contents, was subjected 
t j analysis, with the result of discovering only 23'66 grains 
of spirit. 

We are driven by the evidence now before us to the cer- 
tain conclusion that in the animal body alcohol is decom- 
posed ; that is to say, a certain portion of it (and if a certain 
portion why not the whole ?) is transmutable into new com- 
pounds. The inference that might be drawn is fair enough 
that the alcohol is lost by being burned in the body. It is 
lost in the body, and out of the body it will bum. If it 
will burn in the organism it will supply force, for it enters 
as the bearer of so much potential energy. In combining 
with oxygen is there then a development of force or heat to 
the extent that would be developed in the combustion of the 
same quantity in the lamp, or from the distribution of it 
over the platinum black ? At the same time, and in corro- 
boration, is the product of its combustion, carbonic acid, to 
be discovered in the excretions ? If there be heat, and if 
there be product of carbon consumed in oxygen, then alco- 
hol must rank as a heat-forming food.* 



[* In regard to the experiments mentioned by Dr. Richardson, as 
made by the several gentlemen named, it may not be improper to 
remark that those experiments which were made by Dr. Anstie 
were not, according to his own narration, made by an unprejudiced 
person, and of course were not made in a truly scientific manner. 
While it would be far from the wish of the writer to cast even a 
shadow upon the character of one who has gone to his grave, yet it 
is allowable to say, and it should be said, that the account given by 
himself of his alcoholic experiments induced the writer to judge 
that they were not trustworthy. Dr. Thudichum is known to be a 
man of high rank as an experimentalist and observer, and Dr. 
Dupre is one who has an earned right to speak with authority ; yet 
in this matter they do not appear to have conducted their experi- 
ments to tenable conclusions, as indeed Dr. Richardson conclusively 
shows in the next few pages. They have evidently overlooked some 
facts which will be illumined by further researches, since what they 
supposed that they found to be the case, and the facts in regard to 
external and internal temperature which Dr. Richardson states, 
and which we can all verify, as many have done, cannot stand to- 
gether. Indeed, already the advance of science demonstrates that 



70 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



DOES ALCOHOL CAUSE INCREASE OF ANIMAL HEAT ? 

In putting before you this inquiry, I am prepared to 
answer it by direct knowledge gained from individual ex- 
periment. In the course of some researches I had to make 
for reports rendered to the British Association for the 
Advancement of Science, it became part of my duty to 
ascertain what effect certain chemical agents exert over the 
animal temperature. Amongst these agents was alcohol. 

At the time when my researches commenced, viz., in the 
year 1864, there was nothing delinitely known on the sub- 
ject. The thermometer was not then in such general use as 
it is now, and it had not been applied, as far as I know, to 
this particular determination. Generally, however, it had 
been assumed by the majority of persons that alcohol warms 
the body, and to " take just a drop to keep out the cold" had 
been the practice which the experience of ages seemed to 
justify. It is fair, at the same time, to say that Dr. Lees, 
and some other far-seeing observers, had for many years held 
and asserted a different view. They had not entered into 
minuteness of experimental detail, but they had observed 
from the effects of. alcohol on those who had been exposed to 
cold in the extreme North and in other regions of ice and 
snow, that the drinkers did not live on like other men. 
Thus, in so far as I had what is called experience to guide 
me, I found conflict of opinion. It was not my business, 
however, to accept guidance of this kind, but to appeal to 
the only safe guide, the direct interrogation of nature by 
experiment. 

It were impossible for me to recount the details of the 
long research, — extending, with intervals of rest, over three 
years, — which was conducted in my laboratory, to determine 
the influence of alcohol on the animal temperature. The 
effects were observed on warm-blooded animals of different 
kinds, including birds; on the human subject in health, and 
on the same subject under alcoholic disease. Similar ex- 
alcohol cannot be formed in the human body, as Dr. Dupre thought 
that he had proved was done. ] 



IV.] DOES ALCOHOL INCREASE ANIMAL HEAT? 71 

periments were made in different external temperatures of 
the air, ranging from summer heat to ten degrees below 
freezing point. The whole were carried on from experi- 
ment to experiment, without regard either to comparison or 
result until the general character of result began to proclaim 
that a rule existed which could rarely be considered excep- 
tional. The facts obtained I may epitomize as follows : — 

The progressive stages of change of animal function from 
alcohol are four in number. The first is a stage of excite- 
ment when there exists that relaxation and injection of the 
blood-vessels of the minute circulation with which we have 
become conversant. The second is the stage of excitement 
with some muscular inability and deficient automatic con- 
trol. The third is a stage of rambling, incoherent, emo- 
tional excitement, with loss of voluntary muscular power, 
and ending in helpless unconsciousness. The fourth and 
final stage is that in which the heart itself begins to fail, 
and in which death, in extreme instances of intoxication, 
closes the scene. These stages are developed in all the 
warm-blooded animals, and the changes of temperature 
throughout the whole are relatively the same. 

In the first stage the external temperature of the body is 
raised. In birds — pigeons — the rise may amount to a full 
degree, on Fahrenheit's scale ; in mammals it rarely exceeds 
half a degree. In man it may rise to half a degree, and in 
the confirmed inebriate, in whom the cutaneous vessels are 
readily engorged, I have seen it run up to a degree and a 
half. In this stage the effect on the extremities of the nerves 
is that of a warm glow, like w T hat is experienced during the 
reaction from cold. 

The heat felt in this stage might be considered as due to 
the combustion of the alcohol : it is not so ; it is in truth a 
process of cooling. It is from the unfolding of the larger 
sheet of the warm blood and from the quicker radiation of 
heat from that larger surface. During this stage, which is 
comparatively brief, the internal temperature is declining ; 
the expired air from the lungs is indicating, not an increase, 
but the first period of reduction in the amount of carbonic 
acid, and the reddened surface of the body is so reduced in 
tonicity that cold applied to it increases the suffusion. It is 



72 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

this most deceptive stage that led the older observers into 
the error that alcohol warms the body. 

In the second stage the temperature first comes down to 
its natural standard, and then declines below what is natural. 
The fall is not considerable. In birds it reaches from one 
and a half to two degrees. In other animals, clogs and 
guinea pigs, it rarely exceeds one degree; in man it is con- 
fined to three-fourths of a degree. In a room heated to 65° 
or 70° the decrease of animal temperature may not actually 
be perceived ; but it is quickly detected if the person in 
whom it is present pass into a colder atmosphere, and it 
lasts, even when the further supply of alcohol is cut off, for 
a long period, viz., from two and a half to three hours. It 
is much prolonged by absence of food. 

During the third degreee the fall of temperature rapidly 
increases, and as 1he fourth stage is approached it reaches a 
decline that becomes actually dangerous. In birds the re- 
duction may be H\e degrees and a half, and in the other 
animals three. In man it is often from two and a half to 
three degrees. There is always during this stage a profound 
sleep or coma, and while this lasts the temperature con- 
tinues reduced. 

It is here worthy of incidental notice that, as a rule, the 
sleep of apoplexy and the sleep of drunkenness may be dis- 
tinguished by a marked difference in the animal tempera- 
ture. In apoplexy the temperature of the body is above, in 
drunkenness below, the natural standard of 98° of Fahren- 
heit's scale. 

Under favorable circumstances a long period is required 
before the body recovers its natural warmth after such re- 
duction of heat as follows the extreme stage of alcoholic in- 
toxication. With the first conscious movements of recovery 
there is a faint rise, but such is the depression that these 
very movements exhaust and lead to a further reduction. I 
have known as long a period as three days required, in man, 
to bring back a steady natural return of the full animal 
warmth. 

Through every stage, then, of the action of alcohol — bar- 
ring that first stage of excitement — I found a reduction of 
animal heat to be the special action of the poison. To 



IV.] DOES ALCOHOL INCREASE ANIMAL HEAT? 73 

make the research more perfectly reliable, I combined the 
action of alcohol with that of cold. A warm-blooded ani- 
mal, insensibly asleep in the third stage of alcoholic narcot- 
ism, was placed in a chamber, the air of which was reduced 
in temperature to ten degrees below freezing point, together 
with another similar animal which had received no alcohol. 
I found that both sleep under these circumstances, but the 
alcoholic sleeps to die ; the other sleeps more deeply than is 
natural, and lives so long as the store of food it is charged 
with continues to support life. Within this bound it 
awakes, in a warmer air, uninjured, though the degree of 
cold be carried even lower, and be continued for a much 
longer time. 

One more portion of evidence completes the research on 
the influence of alcohol on the animal temperature. As 
there is a decrease of temperature from alcohol, so there is 
proportionately a decrease in the amount of the natural pro- 
ducts of the combustion of the body. The quantity of car- 
bonic acid exhaled by the breath is proportionately dimin- 
ished with the decline of the animal heat. In the extreme 
stage of alcoholic insensibility, — short of the actually danger- 
ous, — the amount of carbonic acid exhaled by the animal 
and given off into the chamber I constructed for the pur- 
poses of observation was reduced to one-third below the 
natural standard. On the human subject in this stage of 
insensibility the quantity of carbonic acid exhaled has not 
been measured. .But in the earlier stage of alcoholic de- 
rangement of function the exhaled gas was measured with 
much care by a very earnest worker, whose recent death we 
have also to deplore — Dr. Edward Smith, in these early 
stages Dr. Smith found that the amount of carbonic acid 
was reduced in man, as I have found it in the lower animals, 
so that the fact of the general reduction may be considered 
as established beyond disputation. 

We are landed then at last on this basis of knowledge. 
An agent that will burn and give forth heat and product of 
combustion outside the body, and which is obviously decom- 
posed within the body, reduces the animal temperature, and 
prevents the yield of so much product of combustion as is 
actually natural to the organic life. 

4 



74 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

What is the inference ? The inference is that the alcohol 
is not burned after the manner of a food which supports 
animal combustion; but that it is decomposed into secondary 
products, by oxidation, at the expense of the oxygen which 
ought to be applied for the natural heating of the body. 

For some time to come the physiological world will be 
studiously intent on the discovery of the mode by which 
alcohol is removed from the organism. It is a subject on 
which I shall one day be able to speak, I hope, with some 
degree of experimental certainty, but on which at this mo- 
ment I am not prepared to offer more than an indication of 
the probable course of research. I may venture to add, in 
advance, two or three suggestions to which my researches, 
as far as they go, point. 

First, I believe there is a certain determinable degree of 
saturation of the blood with alcohol, within which degree 
all the alcohol is disposed of by its decomposition. Beyond 
that degree the oxidation is arrested, and then there is an 
accumulation of alcohol, with voidance of it, in the un- 
changed state, in the secretions. 

Secondly, the change or decomposition of the alcohol in 
its course through the minute circulation, in which it is 
transformed, is not into carbonic acid and water, as though 
it were burned, but into a new soluble, chemical substance, 
probably aldehyde, which returns by the veins into the great 
channels of the circidation. 

Thirdly, I think I have made out that there is an outlet 
for the alcohol, or for the fluid product of its decomposition 
into the alimentary canal, through the secretion of the liver. 
Thrown into the canal it is, I believe, subjected there to 
further oxidation, is in fact oxidized by a process of fermen- 
tation attended with the active development of gaseous sub- 
stances. From this surface the oxidized product is in turn 
reabsorbed in great part and carried into the circulation, 
and is disposed of by combination with bases or by further 
oxidation. 

Here, however, I leave the theoretical point to revert to 
the practical, and the practical is this ; that alcohol cannot 
by any ingenuity of excuse for it, be classified amongst the 
foods of man. It neither supplies matter for construction 



IV.] EFFECT ON MUSCULAR POWER. 75 



nor heat. On the contrary, it injures construction and it 
reduces temperature. 



EFFECT ON MUSCULAR POWER. 

Behind the question of the effect of alcohol upon the 
animal temperature was another subject for inquiry. It 
was fair to ask whether, if heat were not produced by the 
spirit, some additional stimulus might be communicated by 
it to the muscular fibre. There is nothing in what we see 
relating to the action of alcohol in man that would lead us 
to suppose it capable of giving an increased muscular power, 
and it is certain that animals subjected even for short periods 
of time to its influence lose their power for work in a marked 
degree. Indeed, if we were to treat our domestic animals 
with this agent in the same manner that we treat ourselves, 
we should soon have none that were tamable, none that 
were workable, and none that were edible. I thought it, 
nevertheless, worth the inquiry whether at any stage of the 
alcoholic excitement living muscle could be induced to show 
an extra amount of power. I therefore submitted muscle to 
this test. I gently weighted the hinder limb of a frog until the 
power of contraction was just overcome ; then by a measured 
electrical current I stimulated the muscle to extra contrac- 
tion, and determined the increase of weight that could thus 
be lifted. This decided upon in the healthy animal, the 
trial was repeated some days later on the same animal after 
it had received alcohol in sufficient quantities to induce the 
various stages of alcoholic modification of function. » The 
result was that through every stage the response to the elec- 
trical current was enfeebled, and so soon as narcotism was 
developed by the spirit, it was so enfeebled that less than 
half the weight that could be lifted in the previous trial, by 
the natural effort of the animal, could not now be raised even 
under the electrical excitation. 

In man and in animals, during the period between the 
first and third stages of alcoholic disturbance, there is often 
muscular excitement, which passes for increased muscular 
power. The muscles are then truly more rapidly stimulated 



76 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

into motion by the nervous tumult, but the muscular power 
is actually enfeebled. 

HYGIENIC LESSONS. 

The facts I have endeavored to bring forward in this as 
well as in the last lecture will suggest to the mind many 
thoughts bearing upon the health of individuals and com- 
munities, in so far as health is affected by the potent agent, 
alcohol. I need hardly, indeed, presume to offer any sug- 
gestions, but one or two of a specially practical and everyday 
character may be ventured. 

I am bound to intimate that the popular plan of adminis- 
tering alcohol for the purpose of sustaining the animal 
warmth is an entire and dangerous error, and that when it is 
brought into practice during extremely cold weather ifc is 
calculated to lead even to fatal consequences, from the readi- 
ness with which it permits the blood to become congested in 
the vital organs. I cannot too forcibly impress the fact that 
cold and alcohol act, physiologically, in the same manner, 
and that, combined in action, every danger resulting from 
either agent is doubled. 

Whenever we see a person disposed to meet the effects of 
cold by strong drink it is our duty to endeavor to check that 
effort, and whenever we see an unfortunate person under the 
influence of alcohol it is our duty to suggest warmth as the 
best means for his recovery. These facts prompt many other 
useful ideas of detail, in our common life. If, for instance, 
our police were taught the simple art of taking the animal 
temperature of persons they have removed from the streets 
in a state of insensibility, the results would be most beneficial. 
The operation is one that hundreds of nurses now carry out 
daily, and applied by our police-officers, at their stations, it 
would enable them not only to suspect the difference be- 
tween a man in an apoplectic fit and a man intoxicated, but 
would suggest naturally the instant abolition of the practice 
of thrusting the really intoxicated into a cold and damp cell, 
which to such a one is actually an ante-room to the grave.* 

* Since the delivery of this lecture I am informed that in the 
London Metropolitan district the cells in which the intoxicated are 



IV.] HYGIENIC LESSON'S. 77 

Once more : I would earnestly impress that the systematic 
administration of alcohol for the purpose of giving and sus- 
taining strength is an entire delusion. I am not going to 
say that occasions do not arise when an enfeebled or faint- 
ing heart is temporarily relieved by the relaxation of the 
vessels which alcohol, on its diffusion through the blood, 
induces ; but that this spirit gives any persistent increase 
of power by which men are enabled to perform more sus- 
tained work is a mistake as serious as it is universal. 

Again, the belief that alcohol may be used with advantage 
to fatten the body is, when it is acted upon, fraught with 
danger. For if we could successfully fatten the body we 
should but destroy it the more swiftly and surely ; and as 
the fattening which follows the use of alcohol is not confined 
to the external development of fat but extends to a degenera- 
tion through the minute structures of the vital organs, 
including the heart itself, the danger is painfully apparent.* 

In conclusion, whatever good can come from alcohol, or 
whatever evil, is all included in that primary physiological 
and luxurious action of the agent upon the nervous supply 
of the circulation to which I have endeavored so earnestly 
to direct your attention. If it be really a luxury for the 
heart to be lifted up by alcohol ; for the blood to course 
more swiftly through the brain ; for the thoughts to flow 
more vehemently ; for words to come more fluently ; for 
emotions to rise ecstatically, and for life to rush on beyond 
the pace set by nature; then those who enjoy the luxury 
must enjoy it, — with the consequences. 

received are not open to the objections named. I am glad to be able 
to make this correction. 

[* One of the ways in which the use of alcoholics, especially those 
associated with hops or their extract, lupuline, markedly lager beer, 
induces an increase of fat, is by producing a peculiar derangement 
of the liver. Not every derangement of the liver is associated with 
fattening. But as that organ is one of the means by which heat 
is produced in the body, it follows that if by derangement it cannot 
perform its entire duty, it becomes essential that what is produced 
shall be carefully preserved. Hence a larger quantity of fat is, if 
possible, deposited, and it preserves within the body a correspond- 
ing part of the little heat which is produced. Fat is not, therefore, 
by any means, an indicator of health in all cases ; but if a person is 
warm without it, so much the healthier is he.] 



78 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



LECTURE V. 

THE SECONDARY ACTION OF ALCOHOL ON THE ANIMAL 
FUNCTIONS, AND ON THE PHYSICAL DETERIORATIONS OF 
STRUCTURE INCIDENT TO ITS EXCESSIVE USE. 

It is my business in this course of lectures to treat upon 
the specific action of absolute alcohol. I have therefore 
specially avoided all reference to the spirituous drinks of 
which it forms a part. As a rule in every form of strong 
drink the source of the action of it, for good or for evil, is 
the spirit it contains, and the influence of the drink is potent 
according to the amount of that spirit present in it. To put 
the matter simply, if all the liquors sold under various names 
— wine, brandy, gin, rum, whiskey, ale, stout, perry, cider, — 
were divested of their alcoholic spirit, they would contain 
comparatively little of anything that would affect those who 
partook of them. 



DELETERIOUS ADDITIONS TO ALCOHOLIC DRINKS. 

As I am, however, about to speak of the deleterious action 
of alcohol, it is fair I should admit that some bad effects do 
spring from so-called wine and kindred drinks independently 
of the pure spirit they contain. Something less of evil than 
now obtains would be secured if none but natural wines and 
ales were taken by the people. To return to the times before 
brantwein was distilled, and to have no intoxicating bever- 
ages save pure wine and sound ale, were doubtless an im- 
provement on the state of things which now exist ; for, in 
truth, at the present time the characters of pure ethylic wine 
are hardly known. A bond-fide wine derived from the 
fermentation of the grape purely, cannot contain more than 
seventeen per cent, of alcohol, yet our staple wines, by an 



V.] ABSINTHE. 79 

artificial process of fortifying and brandy ing, which means 
the adding of spirit, are brought up in sherries to twenty, 
and in ports to even twenty- five per cent. Some wines and 
spirits are believed to be charged with amylic alcohol. Other 
wines are charged with foreign volatile substances to impart 
what is called bouquet, and still other so-called wines — I 
allude specially to the effervescing liquids sold under that 
name — are actually often undergoing the fermenting process 
at the time they are imbibed, and thus are invited to com- 
plete their fermentation in that sensitive bottle, the human 
stomach. 

If the subject were specially looked into, a very impor- 
tant chapter of facts might be collected bearing upon the 
injurious effects of these additions to ales, wines, and spirits. 
I have noticed the evils that follow upon the administration 
of an alcoholic drink that has been adulterated with amylic 
alcohol, and have shown that they are exceedingly serious. 
The disturbances excited by the other faults, when they do 
not arise from excess of absolute alcohol, are shown in symp- 
toms of indigestion and in the promotion of an acid condi- 
tion of the secretions of the body, beyond what is natural. 

Presuming therefore it be actually determined by any one 
that lie will take some alcoholic fluid, he will do nearest to 
that which is most wise if he take wines or other spirituous 
drinks in which the quantity of alcohol is simply confined 
to the natural amount, in which the process of fermentation 
has ceased, and in which no foreign substance has been in- 
troduced to add either bouquet, body, piquancy, narcotizing 
influence, or other artificial quality. 



ABSINTHE. 

The admitted addition of some actively poisonous sub- 
stances to alcohol, in order to produce a new luxury, is the 
evil most disastrous. The drink sold under the name of 
absinthe is peculiarly formidable. Jn this liquor five drachms 
of the essence of absinthium, or wormwood, are added to 
one hundred quarts of alcohol. Thus the liquor is not only 
very strong as a mere alcoholic drink, but it is charged with 



80 OJST ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

another agent which has been discovered to exert the most 
powerful and dangerous action upon the nervous functions. 
The essence of absinthium, in doses of from thirty to fifty 
grains produces in dogs and rabbits signs of extreme terror 
and trembling, followed by stupor and insensibility. In 
larger doses it causes epileptiform convulsions, foaming at 
the mouth, and stertor of the breathing. Its effects, as they 
occur from the taking of it in the form of absinthe in man, 
have been most ably described to me by one who indulged 
in it until it induced in him the peculiar epileptiform seiz- 
ure. He described the effects as resembling those produced 
by haschish, the narcotic of the East which has been known 
for ages as the nepenthes of Homer, and which owes its 
properties to extract of Indian hemp or Cannabis indica. 
The partial insensibility caused by the absinthe is attended 
with the ideal existence of long intervals of time, in which 
the events of a whole life are arrayed and appreciated, to be 
succeeded by terrific hallucinations and intellectual weak- 
ness, ending in unconscious struggling as if for life. In 
time, if the use of the absinthe be continued, these phenom- 
ena become permanently established and the result is inevi- 
tably fatal. 

The doubly poisonous absinthe is made the more seductive 
to its victims by the fact that it excites a morbid craving 
for food which is never felt except when it is tempted by the 
destroying agent. Indeed such are the terrible consequences 
incident to this agent, that I agree with Dr. Decaisne in 
maintaining that it ought, by legal provision, to be forbidden 
as an article for human consumption in all civilized com- 
munities. Even in small quantities taken daily, say one or 
two wineglassfuls, it causes quickly a permanent dyspepsia, 
and, what is of still more consequence, it tempts its victims 
on and on, so that they cannot take food until absinthe has 
prompted the desire for it, by which time they are too often 
hopelessly and mortally in its power. 

Until recently absinthe has not been publicly offered for 
sale in this country on a large scale. But now, unhappily, 
the poison is openly announced even here, and the consump- 
tion is on the increase ; I am doing therefore a public duty 
in denouncing its use solemnly from this platform, whence 



V.] ADDITION OF OTHER AGENTS. 81 

so much that is beneficial to society has for a century past 
been spoken. 

ADDITION OF OTHER AGENTS. 

The intentional additions of poisonous agents to the alco- 
hol of ales, wines, and spirits, pale when absinthe appears 
in sight, but they are not to be ignored. It is true that we 
very often hear accounts of the effects for evil of bad wine, 
when in fact, the evil is due to the excess of ordinary 
alcohol that has been taken by the complainant. At the 
same time it is not to be denied that there exists in our 
midst a system of mixing, compounding, blending, and 
reducing wines and spirits, which, carried even to artistic 
perfection, is additionally prejudicial to the business of sell- 
ing the various alcoholic beverages. 

To be just to our own age, this artistic performance is not 
an invention of it. The adulteration of wine is indeed one 
of the oldest devices, extending from the Greeks and 
Romans onward to this day. In the Middle Ages many 
prohibitory acts were passed against it by various govern- 
ments. As late as the close of the seventeenth century an 
act was passed by Duke Everhard Louis of Wurtemburg 
making it an offence punishable with death and confiscation 
of property to adulterate wine with bismuth, sulphur, or the 
salt of lead called litharge, now known as the yellow pro- 
toxide of lead. In the year 1705-6, John Jacob Ernhi of 
Eslingen was actually beheaded for carrying out adulteration 
with the forbidden poisonous lead compound. 

Into our modern civilization a different system of treating 
strong drinks, in order to rectify bad qualities or to impart 
new, is, as a rule, followed. The plan of using gypsum or 
sulphate of lime to remove the acidity of wine, a practice 
that was followed both by the Greeks and Romans, is 
however still resorted to ; so also is the practice of 
using lime for the same purpose, and for which Jack 
FalstafF so severely criticizes the landlord of the " Boar's 
Head " :— 

" You rogue, here's lime in this sack : There is nothing 
but roguery to be found in villainous man : yet a coward 
4* 



82 ON ALCOHOL. [Lectuke 

is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it ; a villainous 
coward." 

But, on the whole, the new clay has brought new plans 
and new intentions, having reference to the different forms 
of drinks, namely, ales, wines, and spirits, which pass from 
the hands of the vendor to the consumer. 



ALES. 

The practice of adulteration the least hurtful is carried on 
in ales ; that at all events is my experience of the ales sold 
in London, and I speak from a practical knowledge of the 
facts. A few years ago a well-known statist asked me to 
undertake for him a research on the ales sold in London, 
with a view to the detection of the adulterations in them. 
For many weeks this gentleman himself collected beers and 
ales from different retail houses in the most diverse parts of 
this metropolis, and neither trouble nor expense was spared 
in the examination of these samples, in order to arrive at 
correct results as to the composition of the fluids thus re- 
tailed. I may state at once that I did not in any one 
instance find a truly dangerous adulteration. I found that 
to many samples common salt had been added, and to some 
sugar ; but the grand adulteration was water, by which the 
consumer was, if I may so express it, fraudulently benefited 
and the government proportionately defrauded. If this 
aqueous adulteration were not carried on, our registrars of 
deaths and collectors of revenues would both show heavier 
totals. 

There is a prevailing notion that to malt liquor, bitter 
substances, such as strychnine, or narcotic substances, such 
as cocculus indicuSy are added. Neumann says that in his 
time, that is just one hundred years ago, clary, cocculus 
indicus, and Bohemian rosemary were added to malt liquors 
in order to increase their intoxicating powers, and he states 
that the last named substance, Bohemian rosemary, pro- 
duced a raving intoxication. I know it is also urged, in this 
day, that there is no known application for the quantity of 
cocculus indicus that is sold except it be for the adulteration 



V.] WINES. 83 

of malt liquors. I will not dispute the matter, but I con- 
tent myself with stating that I have never detected any 
foreign body of the kind, and that in the whole of my ex- 
perience of the effect of malt liquors on man, I have never 
known a symptom produced indicative of the effects of such 
adulterating substances. 

The stronger ales and stouts are injurious mainly from 
the alcohol they contain. Those which have- not ceased 
fermenting, and from which gas is escaping, produce a per- 
sistent dyspepsia in persons who indulge in them, a dyspepsia 
attended with flatulency, painful distention of the stomach, 
and with loss of proper muscular power of the stomach, by 
which deficiency the trituration of food is impeded and 
rendered imperfect. At the same time the action of the 
gastric fluids upon the food is made less # effective. There is 
at the present day in the market a substance used as an 
addition to ales, which is called saccharina. It is sold in 
the form of the ordinary sugar-loaf. It is made by the 
action of diluted sulphuric acid upon starchy matter and is, 
in fact, a grape sugar. It gives to the ale body and sweetness. 
It is in itse]f a fattening food, and as it is the same as that 
form of sugar which is found in those who suffer from the 
disease called diabetes, and which produces the symptoms 
of that disease, it cannot be taken in quantity without some 
indirect risk of danger. 

WINES. 

The evils arising from wines, apart from those which are 
due to the natural ethylic alcohol they should contain, are 
derived from several sources. The wine that has not ceased 
to ferment, and when uncorked is found to be charged with 
gas, is often as injurious as beer in which the fermentation 
has not ended. It produces a fermenting process within the 
body, and gives rise to those phenomena of dyspepsia to 
which allusion has already been made. Wine that has once 
been acid and has been treated with lime in order that the 
acidity may be neutralized, is open to the objection of an 
excess of salts of lime. It has been urged against wines 
treated in this manner that they lead to calculous disease 



84 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



when they are taken in quantity for long periods. I must 
answer to this suggestion that I have not had experience of 
the slightest evidence that would support it, nor do I think 
there is sufficient of such wine consumed to warrant any 
conclusion of the kind. Wine if adulterated with amylic 
alcohol is unquestionably dangerous, owing to those physio- 
logical effects produced by the adulterant to which I specially 
directed attention in the second lecture of this, coarse. 
Wines that are beaded are injurious, owing to the foreign 
mixture for beading that has been added to them, and which 
I shall presently describe. 

Some substances that form in natural wines exert an effect 
on the animal body when they are taken into it. These 
substances are principally aldehyde and acetic acid. Alde- 
hyde when it is present in wine communicates to it a 
natural bouquet. You will find on the table a pure specimen 
of aldehyde, and you will also find specimens of natural 
wines, kindly lent to me by Mr. Denman, in which this 
change of alcohol by oxidation has taken place. In the year 
1848 the late Sir James Simpson, of Edinburgh, discovered 
that aldehyde would produce anaesthetic sleep when its 
vapor was inhaled, and I have since submitted it to experi- 
ment with the view of testing its action on the living body. 
I find it is a rapidly 'intoxicating agent, sharp to the nerves 
of sense, and acting with greater rapidity than alcohol, and 
with a less prolonged effect, for it is soluble in water, and is 
so volatile that it boils at 72° Fahr. It is therefore quickly 
diffused and quickly eliminated from the body. The action 
of aldehyde upon the living body has been as yet insufficiently 
studied. It has a close relation to the narcotic action of 
alcohol, and the symptoms it produces are so similar I am 
inclined to believe that the narcotism which follows the 
administration of alcoholic spirit is partly due to its produc- 
tion. 

The presence of acetic acid in wines is on the whole not 
injurious, if the wine in other respects be free of adulteration. 
The tendency of this acid itself is to promote the digestion 
of .albuminous foods, and I have sometimes observed in 
persons whose digestive power is feeble, signs of improve- 
ment under its use. In saying this I do not however wish to 



V.] SPIRITS. 85 

convey that therefore a rough acid wine should be taken for 
indigestion, for the acid in such instances may be adminis- 
tered without the wine and perhaps with greater advantage. 
I only wish to record that acidity of wine, in which fermen- 
tation has ceased, is not a source of additional injury. The 
astringent acid — called tannic — of some wines has been 
advanced as useful in the cases of certain persons who suffer 
from laxity of body, and who require astringent remedies. 
It would be wrong to dispute that there may be in wine a 
virtue of this kind ; but it is not peculiar to wine. It can 
be secured when it is wanted without wine at all, and in a 
more certain wa}^. This remark holds equally good in re- 
spect to what may be favorably spoken of the saline sub- 
stances which some wines naturally present. I mean to say 
that the saline constituents can be administered with more 
certain and therefore with better effect, independently of 
wine. 

SPIRITS. 

Into the different spirits commonly sold, several sub- 
stances are introduced which exert more or less of baneful 
influence on the body that receives them. The addition of 
amylic alcohol has been already condemned and need not 
again be mentioned, and I omit intentionally, for the sake 
of brevity, a great number of other added substances which 
do not seem to me to be active for evil, though they were 
possibly better left out of the animal organism. After these 
are withdrawn there remain many other agents which can- 
not fairly be omitted from our consideration. There is oil 
of juniper, oil of bitter almonds, potassa, alum, nitric acid, 
oil of vitriol, or sulphuric acid, and butyric acid. In even 
small quantities every one of these agents is injurious to the 
body if it be taken for any long continued period of time. 
The oil of juniper is an active diuretic, and thereby is in- 
jurious to the excreting power of one of the most important 
of the vital organs. The oil of bitter almonds contains, un- 
less it be specially purified, hydrocyanic or prussic acid, and 
exerts then in small and often repeated quantities a preju- 
dicial influence on the nervous functions. Potassa causes a 



86 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

dry and caustic action upon the mucous membrane of the 
mouth, throat, and stomach, for the production of which 
action it is actually added systematically, that it may give 
the peculiar sharpness called " biting the palate." 

Alum is a powerful astringent, producing constipation, 
and sustaining a persistent dyspepsia so long as it is being 
swallowed. JSFitrie acid is an astringent, exerting also a 
physiological action on the liver. Sulphuric acid is an as- 
tringent ; and butyric acid, as I found in an original re- 
search which I once conducted with it, causes a congested 
or inflammatory condition of the whole track of the mucous 
membrane. 

Thus each one of these agents added to the alcoholic 
drinks increases the evils that are likely to arise from the 
alcohol itself. Let us admit that the added evils are small, 
nay, I had nearly said, infinitesimal, when considered by the 
measurement of one administration. But who can measure 
by that standard ? When once the taste for any of these 
unnatural substances is acquired it grows by what it feeds 
on, and that which was infinitesimal at the beginning be- 
comes after long continuance a serious charge for the body 
to bear daily. 

The spirit in common use that is most subject to the 
chemicals I have named is gin. Gin has to be made cor- 
dial, to be sweetened, to be rendered creamy and smooth, to 
be flavored, to be made biting to the palate, to be beaded, 
and what not else. To be made " cordial " it must be 
charged with oil of juniper, with essence of angelica, with 
oil of bitter almonds, with oil of coriander, and with oil of 
carraway. To sweeten it, it must be treated with oil of 
vitriol, oil of almonds, oil of juniper, spirits of wine and loaf 
sus:ar ; to " force down " the same it must be further treated 
with a solution of alum and carbonate of potassa. To be 
rendered creamy and smooth, it must be sweetened with 
sugar, and lightly charged with a small quantity of garlic, 
Canadian balsam, or IStrasburg turpentine. To give it 
piquancy, it must have had digested in it shreds of horse- 
radish. To be made biting to the palate, it must receive 
that touch of caustic potash of which I have spoken. 

As you see the habituated gin drinker partaking of his 



V.] SPIRITS. 87 

favorite drink you observe, often, that he enjoys it the more 
if it be what he calls " pearly," or a beaded." He holds up 
the precious liquid in his glass, and as he sees the oily fluid 
roll down the side, as beads, leaving each a creamy train 
behind it, he rejoices in his treasure. It is creme de la creme 
of gin. Those wicked pearly drops are, to his flushed eyes, 
the proofs of the purity and excellence of what he would 
probably tell you was, without mistake, the genuine article. 
The genuineness consists in the fact that our enthusiastic 
friend's gin has been beaded by the addition of the following 
artistic mixture : — An ounce of oil of sweet almonds has 
been added to an ounce of oil of vitriol. These have been 
rubbed together in a mortar with two ounces of loaf sugar 
until a paste has been formed. The paste has next been 
dissolved in spirit of wine until a thin liquid has been pro- 
duced ; and this, added to one hundred gallons of gin, has 
given the fine pearly bead that is so much admired. 

Redding, in his history and description of modern wines, 
narrated in his day the many receipts that were openly 
published in the then existing publicans' guides and licensed 
victuallers' directories for the artificial manufacturing of 
wines, and for modifying spirituous liquors. I have gone 
for my information to a similar work of the present day, 
" The New Mixing and Reducing Book," which is, I under- 
stand, one of the hand-books of the retailer, the same to him 
as the pharmacopoeia is to the druggist, and to be followed 
in all the varied arts as implicitly. I cannot leave this book 
without reading from it a quotation that bears directly on 
the health of the poorer classes who indulge in gin. 

" Gin, it may be observed, is of all the spirits ordinarily 
kept by a publican the one which, when cleverly managed, 
yields him the greatest and securest profit. The reason of 
this is that there is hardly any definite selling strength for 
gin, especially if it be sweetened. Within very wide limits 
no complaint is made by customers on the score of weakness, 
provided only the gin is creamy, palatable, and sharp tasted. 
But the slightest taint, or the slightest fault of color, or a 
sensible difference in the usual flavor, will lead to dissatis- 
faction and loss of custom. Strong or unsweetened gin is 
in comparatively little request, and then with few exceptions 



88 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecttjbe 

only amongst the respectable or moneyed classes. At least 
three fourths of the spirits sold over the counter of a public 
house consists of sweetened or made-up gin; and as the 
sugar greatly alters the character of the liquor and deadens 
the original strength, it is possible for the retailer to consult 
his own interests by a liberal addition of water without in 
any degree exciting the disapprobation, or injuring the 
health of those who patronize his establishment. 

" As a tolerably safe general rule there will be no occasion 
to fear dissatisfaction when sweetened gin is not brought 
below 35 or even 40 per cent. U.P. It is then nearly five 
times as strong as old ale. Much more is thought of a pleas- 
ant warming aromatic taste or smack than of simple alco- 
holic strength. But as the most careful man may sometimes 
overshoot the mark in reducing, it is advisable to know how 
to restore the requisite degree of pungency and sharpness, 
without having recourse to the use of so expensive an agent 
as spirit of wine. Supposing then, that by accident the 
strength of a parcel of gin has been lowered rather too far, 
a good and cheap remedy is the following : — For 100 gallons, 
1 ounce of cassia, -J ounce of chilies. Steep for a week in a 
pint of spirit of wine ; then mix well with the gin." 

The other spirituous liquors, rum, whiskey, and brandy, 
are less falsified than gin. Rum is occasionally adulterated 
with an essential oil like butyrin and with butyric acid, 
these two substances being present in some natural rum, to 
which they give a special flavor. Whiskey is modified by 
blending, so as to communicate qualities of smoothness and 
softness. The yellowish color given to whiskey is produced 
by pouring the spirit into sherry casks, or by stirring it up 
with the lees of wine. These refined whiskeys are prepared 
for the rich and sumptuous ; the poor, it is recommended, 
should be treated with the spirit they understand best ; a 
sharp and potent drink, that will bring the tears into the 
eyes, and make the throat smart as it goes down. 

Brandy, except when treated with fusel oil, is not, I 
believe, adulterated with any injurious compound. But it 
carries with it naturally a peculiar ether, which gives to it 
a special odor. This ether is very heavy when compared 
with ethylic ether. Its specific gravity is 862, taking water 



V.] SECONDARY PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION. 89 

at 1000, and its boiling point is 479° on Fahrenheit's scale. 
It is all but insoluble in water, to which, however, ifc com- 
municates its peculiar odor. It exerts on the body an in- 
jurious influence; it causes nausea, thirst, and pain in the 
stomach. It seems also to arrest the due secretion of bile. 



SECONDARY PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION OF SIMPLE ALCOHOL. 

I leave now the consideration of the evils arising from 
the action of the different extraneous substances that are 
present in alcoholic drinks to resume the study of the action 
of ethylic alcohol itself when it is free of any such combina- 
tions. I have to consider under this head the effect of the 
consumption of alcohol in its slow and progressive course, in 
what may be called its secondary manifestations of effect 
upon those who for long periods of their lives submit them- 
selves to its influence. 

I have shown that in the course of acute intoxication 
from this spirit there are four degrees or stages, each 
degree marked by different series of phenomena. In the 
secondary, or, technically speaking, chronic intoxication, 
from the same agent, there are in like manner four distinct 
degrees, each presenting distinct phenomena. A minority 
of persons who habitually take alcohol escape with impunity 
from injury. Some of these escape because they only 
subject themselves to it on a scale so moderate they can 
scarcely be said to be under its spell. If they take it regu- 
larly they never exceed an ounce to an ounce and a half 
of the pure spirit in the day ; and if they indulge in a little 
more than this, it is only at recreative seasons, after which 
they atone for what they have done by a temporary total 
abstinence. Others take more freely than the above, but 
escape because they are physiologically constituted in such 
manner that they can rapidly eliminate the fluid from their 
bodies. These, if they are moderately prudent, may even go 
so far as to indulge in alcohol and yet suffer no material 
harm. But they are a limited few, if the term may be ap- 
plied to them, who are thus privileged. The large majority 
of those who drink alcohol in any of its disguises are injured 



90 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

by it. As a cause of disease it gives origin to great popula- 
tions of afflicted persons, many of whom suffer even to death 
without suspecting from what they suffer, and unsuspected. 
Some of these live just short of the first stage of natural 
old age ; others to ripe middle age ; others only to ripe 
adolescence. 

i 

1 DETERIORATION OF THE BODY UNDER THE FIRST DEGREE. 

The first degree of the secondary action of alcohol is 
evidenced in those who by constant habit imbibe an alcoholic 
stimulant to the simple extent of producing arterial relaxa- 
tion, and of setting the heart at liberty to perform an in- 
creased series of motive contractions. They do not, as a rule, 
receive what is commonly called an excess of any alcoholic 
drink, but they become trained to a sensation of want for it 
and to an appetite which, while all seems to go well, they have 
no desire to resist, though they may keep it within what they 
conceive are its due limits. Such persons confine their liba- 
tions to four or six ounces of alcohol per day, a couple of 
glasses of sherry or of ale at luncheon, three or four glasses 
of wine at dinner, one or two at dessert, and a mixture of 
spirit and water before going to bed. Such is a common and 
a a temperate day," but reckoned up it means at least from 
four to six ounces of alcohol. The primary effect of such a 
quantity we know. Continued daily it induces a new physio- 
logical and altogether unnatural condition, in which the 
sense of acquired necessity enforces desire, until at last the 
spirit is made to become a positive requirement of the or- 
ganic and the mental life. Every extra effort must be pre- 
ceded by the resort to the stimulant. Every prolonged 
weariness must be relieved by the same measure ; but when 
the effect of the stimulant has speedily subsided, there is left 
a greater exhaustion than before. Another resource to the 
artificial aid completes the exhaustion, and makes it pass 
into dulness and drowsiness without natural and sound sleep, 
and with an unbearable sense of after prostration. 

For many years, in the young and adolescent, this alco- 
holic life may be carried on without any evidence being ren- 
. dered of the progress of physical deterioration. In the young 



V.] DETERIORATION OF THE BODY. 91 

the processes of assimilation, of secretion, and of excretion, 
are in their full activity, and the poisonous agent with 
which the blood and tissues are saturated is disposed of so 
readily and promptly, it does not stay long enough in con- 
tact with these parts to vitiate them. This is a very 
homely way of putting the fact, but it is scientifically true. 
The young, therefore, seem to escape, and I believe that up 
to the close of the first term of the natural life, that is to 
say, to the close of that period of full growth and develop- 
ment which extends to thirty years, they sometimes escape 
so successfully that if they could but stop in their course at 
that point they might go through the remaining terms of 
existence without any further important modification of 
function. 

Unfortunately, it is the rarest of events that a person arti- 
ficially stimulated by alcohol, to the period named, gives up 
the practice. The majority are utterly ignorant of the dan- 
gers that are ahead, and the sense of support to which 
they have been trained by the practice leads them on to 
pursue it with even a greater reliance upon it than before, and 
with a feeling of more urgent demand. In a word, the sen- 
sation that they cannot do without it, the sensation of low- 
ness and depression when it is by any accident withheld, and 
the contrast of lightness and activity when it is regained, 
are so powerful, in their influences upon the mind, there is 
no resisting the belief of the absolute necessity. 

But when the body is fully developed; when the extra 
vital capacity which attended youth is expended in growth 
and development ; when all the organs have assumed their 
full size and activity ; when the balance of secretion is so 
nicely set in all parts that not one secretion can be disturbed 
without a disturbance of the whole ; when the spring of the 
elastic tissues is reduced ; when the lungs cannot fail ever 
so little in their function of throwing off the gaseous pro- 
ducts of combustion without a vicarious extrusion of gases 
> into the alimentary canal ; when the completed organic 
i moving parts become encumbered with fatty matter inter- 
posed between them, or laid out around them ; then the 
effect of alcoholic spirit begins to be realized. The fluid is 
now retained longer in the living house ; is decomposed less 



92 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

quickly ; is thrown out by primary or secondary elimina- 
tion less speedily. 

The action of alcohol under these new conditions, so 
favorable in every sense to the series of changes it is capable 
of effecting, is twofold. The action in the first place is 
purely mechanical. We are aware that it leads to temporary 
paralysis of the vessels of the minute circulation, and that 
upon this the heart responds with a quicker propelling 
stroke. Thus the vessels throughout the whole of the body are 
dilated, and are held in a state of unnatural relaxation and un- 
natural tension. Under this persistent pressure their diame- 
ters change in course of time, and the whole of the mar- 
vellous webwork of blood, upon which the organs of the 
body are constructed, is deranged, in its mechanical dis- 
tribution, over its extended surface. During this time, 
too, the function of the heart becomes perverted. The 
heart is truly an automatic organ, but it is still an organ 
which feels none the less severely the effect of the stimulus. 
If it make to-day an unnatural number of one hundred 
and twenty-five thousand strokes, it cannot to-morrow sink 
back, from absence of its stimulus, to the normal one hun- 
dred thousand without evidencing some disturbance of 
action, some feebleness, some hesitation, or some palpita- 
tion. In fact, as it is an organ which by its own stroke 
feeds its own structure with blood, it is the first to 
suffer from irregular supplies of blood. Thus, under alco- 
hol, the nutrition of the heart is mechanically modified. 
Whipped into undue work, it becomes, like the muscles of 
the blacksmith's arm or the opera dancer's leg, of undue size 
and power ; and in proportion as this evil increases, the ne- 
cessity for the stimulus it calls for grows more urgent. 

In turn this extreme power and force of the heart tells 
upon the vessels that are fed by its impulsive stroke, and so 
all the organs that are constructed upon those vessels ap- 
preciate with abnormal sensitiveness the whip of the stimu- 
lus, and the languor when the whip is withheld. 

Of itself this extreme sensitiveness of the heart is suffi- 
ciently momentous, but the ultimate results upon the body at 
large are perhaps more important than the pure local change 
that is instituted in that perfect and elaborate pulsating 



V.] DETERIORATION OF THE BODY. 93 

mechanism. The heart nob only becomes enlarged, but its 
various valvular and other mechancial parts, subjected to 
prolonged strain, are thrown out of proportion. The orifices 
in it, through which the great floods of blood issue in their 
courses, are dilated. The exquisite valves become stretched, 
and prevented from assuming their refined adaptations. 
The minute filamentous cords which hold the valves in due 
position and tension are elongated, and the walls of the ven- 
tricles or forcing chambers are thickened, or as we say, tech- 
nically, are hypertrophied. Throughout the whole of its 
structures the central throbbing organ is modified both in 
its mechanism and in its action. 

But such central modification cannot possibly go on long 
without the institution of other changes at the opposite 
extremity or circumference of the circuit of the blood. At 
one moment the vital organs feel the pressure of the too 
powerful stroke of blood; at another moment they are 
suddenly aware of an enfeebled stroke. The brain is, for 
the instant, conscious of a flicker of power : it is like the 
faintest flicker of gas, which is observed when, by an acci- 
dent, the pressure is disturbed at the main, but it in there, 
and the person who experiences it is cognizant of its central 
origin. So matters progress often for months, or for years, 
without further evidence cf subjective or objective sign of 
increasing evil. The worst evidence that exists is, probably, 
the necessity for a more frequent repetition of the stimulus 
under additional stress of work or excitement. 

While these changes in the simple mechanism of the cir- 
culation are in course t of advancement, there are also in 
development certain other changes which are much more 
delicate and minute, yet not less important. These consist 
of direct deteriorations of structure of the organic tissues 
themselves. We are, at the present time, only on the border- 
land of a new knowledge on this subject, and I myself am, 
in this matter, a mere outpost wandering woiideringly, and 
trying to observe what is going on, but as yet, though thus 
advanced, unprepared to speak with so much precision and 
fulness of detail as I desire. The following explanation, 
simply spoken, illustrates the degenerative changes of organic 
structure from the continued use of alcohol. 



94 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

Alcohol produces physical deterioration by destroying the 
integrity of the colloidal matter of which the tissues are 
composed. I have explained that all the organic parts are 
constructed out of colloidal substance ; that every such part, 
including the blood-vessels, to their minutest ramifications, 
is composed of this colloid material arranged in different 
forms and plans to suit the design of the part, whether it 
be a tube, like an artery, a bundle of cross-cut fibres like a 
muscle, or a refracting globe like the crystalline lens of the 
eyeball. That these parts should be kept in their integrity, 
in the midst of their diversity, the ultimate structure of 
which they are composed must be held in proper measure 
of construction with water. Disturb the relationship that 
should exist between the colloid and its combining water, 
and the character of the colloid is at once changed. Take, 
for example, some colloidal albumen in the fluid state. 
Pour a little of it on to a glass plate as a thin watery film. 
Then spread over it a little finely-powdered caustic soda, by 
which to remove and fix some of the water which previously 
held it as a liquid. The thin liquid is transformed into a 
transparent membrane which possesses elasticity. Into a 
porcelain cup pour a small quantity of the same solution, 
and then drop into the solution a bead of soda ; soon you 
can lift the solution from a cup in a solid mass, shaped like 
a concavo-convex transparent lens. I could multiply these 
facts indefinitely, but I am anxious to indicate only one 
particular fact, viz., that alcohol and its derivative aldehyde 
possess also, by their affinity for water, the property of 
destroying the integrity of the colloidal form of matter. 
Thus they solidify, or render pectousthe colloidal structures. 
Take a solution of albumen and add to it alcohol. The 
albumen is rendered thick or pectous. Take a solution of 
caseine ; add to it aldehyde ; the caseine is rendered thick 
or pectous. 

Animal tissues subjected to alcohol can be perverted to 
any degree, and in the most diverse and apparently contra- 
dictory ways. I can hold blood permanently fluid with 
alcohol ; I can solidify it with the same agent. I can reduce 
the size and modify the shape of the blood corpuscles, and I 
can so modify those fine and delicate animal membranes 



V.] DETERIORATION OF THE BODY. 95 



which dialyze or allow to pass through them the saline 
matter of the blood and secretions, that the process of 
dialysis shall be impeded, and that which should pass 
through shall be left in combination with the membrane. 
I can destroy the elasticity of the blood-vessels in the same 
way, for that depends upon the presence in them of a gela- 
tinous colloid elastic substance called elasticin. 

When, therefore, alcohol holds long-continued contact 
with the perfectly developed colloidal tissues, its action 
upon them to produce physical deterioration is simply inev- 
itable, and from this cause arise those fatal lesions of local 
organs which mark the different phases and stages of alcoholic 
disease. The commencement of the change sometimes 
shows itself visibly on the surface of the body. The vessels 
of the face become permanently enlarged and suffused with 
blood. In cold weather, the blood circulating imperfectly 
through these vessels, and, not fully aerated, gives to the 
skin that dull leaden hue which is so characteristically sig- 
nificant of prolonged indulgence. In hot weather, the 
blood circulating more freely aud purely, gives to the skin 
a red hue and often a deep red blotch, which is hardly less 
demonstrative. 

In this stage of alcoholic disease eruptions upon the skin 
occur to declare the injurious action of the spirit upon the 
colloidal gelatinous textures. The epidermis or scarf skin 
is imperfectly thrown off; it dies upon the surface, but 
owing to deficient vascular and nervous tone beneath, it is 
not replaced so quickly as is natural. Thus the dead debris, 
in form of scale and sometimes with fluid beneath, accumu- 
lates ; the superficial nervous surface which should be pro- 
tected by the newly formed epidermis is exposed, and irri- 
tation and pain follow as a consequence. 

The evils, in the slighter stages of alcoholic disease, are 
often connected with others, which are perhaps passing, 
but which give rise to very unpleasant phenomena. There 
is what is called a dyspepsia or indigestion, to relieve 
which the sufferer too frequently resorts to the actual cause 
of it as the cure for it. There is thirst, there is uneasiness 
of the stomach, flatulency, and a set of so-called nervous 
phenomena, which keep the mind irritable, and make trilling 



96 OF ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

. , 1 

cares and anxieties assume an exaggerated and unnatural 
character. From the earliest period in the history of the 
drinking of alcohol these phenomena have been observed. 
"Who," says Solomon, referring to this action, "Who 
hath woe? Who hath contentions ? Who hath babbling? 
Who hath wounds without cause ? Who hath redness of 
the eyes ? " 

What modern physiologist could define better the steady 
and progressive effect of alcohol upon those, who even under 
the guise of temperate men, trust to it as a support ? And 
yet these evils are minor, compared with certain I have to 
bring forward in the next and concluding lecture. 






VI.] PHYSICAL DETERIORATIONS. 97 



LECTIJEE VI. 

PHYSICAL DETERIORATIONS FROM ALCOHOL (continued). IN- 
FLUENCE OF ALCOHOL ON THE VITAL ORGANS. — MENTAL 
PHENOMENA INDUCED BY ITS USE. SUMMARY. 

Towards the close of my last lecture I touched on the 
effects of the continued action of alcohol upon the colloidal 
structures of the body, indicating that it is impossible for 
these structures to escape deterioration. I must dwell for 
a few moments longer on this subject. 

The parts which first suffer most from alcohol are those 
expansions in the animal body which the anatomists call 
the membranes. The membranes are colloidal struct ares, 
and every organ is enveloped in them. The skin is a mem- 
branous envelope. Through the whole of the alimentary 
surface, from the lips downwards, and through the bronchial 
passages to their minutest ramifications, extends the mucous 
membrane. The lungs, the heart, the liver, the kidneys, are 
folded in delicate membranes which can be stripped easily 
from these parts. If you take a portion of bone you will 
find it easy to strip off from it a membranous sheath or 
covering; if you open and examine a joint you will find 
both the head and the socket lined with membrane. 

The whole of the intestines are enveloped in fine mem- 
brane, called peritoneum. All the muscles are enveloped in 
membranes, and the fasciculi or bundles and fibres of mus- 
cles have their membranous sheathing. The brain and spinal 
cord are enveloped in three membranes ; one nearest to 
themselves, a pure vascular structure, a network of blood- 
vessels ; another, a thin serous structure ; a third, a strong 
fibrous structure. The eyeball is a structure of colloidal 
humors and membranes, and of nothing else. To complete 
the description, the minute structures of the vital organs 
are enrolled in membranous matter. 
5 



98 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

Tt was held by the old anatomists that this membranous 
arrangement of the body is mainly mechanical. The parts 
and organs, according to their view, are supported and held 
in position by these membranous sheaths and pouches and 
coverings. Doubtless this is a portion of their usefulness, 
for in fact they do hold all the structures together in the 
most perfect order. But this is only a small part of their 
duties. The membranes are the filters of the body. In 
their absence there could be no construction, no solidification 
of tissue, no organic mechanism. Passive themselves, they 
nevertheless separate all structures into their respective 
positions and adaptations. 

The animal receives from the vegetable world and from 
the earth the food and drink it requires for its sustenance 
and motion. It receives colloidal food for its muscles ; com- 
bustible food for its warmth ; water for the solution of its 
various parts ; salts for constructive and other physical pur- 
poses. These have all to be arranged in the body, and they 
are arranged by means of the membranous envelopes. 
Through these membranes nothing can pass that is not for 
the time in a state of aqueous solution like water or soluble 
salts. Water passes freely through them, salts pass freely 
through them, but the constructive matter of the active parts 
that is colloidal does not pass ; it is retained in them until 
it is chemically decomposed into the soluble type of matter. 
When we take for our food a portion of animal flesh, it is 
first resolved, in digestion, into a soluble fluid before it can 
be absorbed ; in the blood it is resolved into the fluid col- 
loidal condition. In the solids it is laid down within the 
membranes into new structure, and when it has played its 
part, or rather in the very act of playing its part, it is 
transformed into a crystalloidal soluble substance ready to 
be carried away and to be replaced by new matter, then it is 
dialyzed or passed through the membranes into the blood, 
and is disposed of in the excretions. 

See then what an all-important part these membranous 
structures play in the animal life. Upon their integrity all 
the silent work of the building up of the body depends. If 
these membranes are rendered too porous, and let out the 
colloidal fluids of the blood — the albumen for example — the 



VI] EFFECT ON VITAL FUNCTIONS. 99 

body so circumstanced dies ; dies as if it were slowly bled to 
death. If, on the contrary, they become condensed or 
thickened, or loaded with foreign material, then they fail to 
allow the natural fluids to pass through them. They fail to 
dialyze, and the result is, either an accumulation of the fluid 
in a closed cavity, or contraction of the substance enclosed 
w T ithin the membrane, or dryness of membrane in surfaces 
that ought to be freely lubricated and kept apart. In old 
age we see the effects of modification of membrane naturally 
induced; we see the fixed joint, the shrunken and feeble 
muscle, the dimmed eye, the deaf ear, the enfeebled nervous 
function. 

It may possibly seem at first sight that I am leading im- 
mediately away from the subject of the secondary action of 
alcohol. It is not so. I am leading directly to it. Upon 
all these membranous structures alcohol exerts a direct per- 
version of action. It produces in them a thickening, a 
shrinking, and an inactivity that reduces their functional 
power. That they may work rapidly and equally they re- 
quire to be at all times charged with water to saturation. 
If into contact with them any agent is brought that deprives 
them of water, then is their work interfered with ; they 
cease to separate the saline constituents properly, and, if the 
evil that is thus started be allowed to continue, they con- 
tract upon their contained matter in whatever organ it may 
be situated, and condense it. 

In brief, under the prolonged influence of alcohol those 
changes which take place from it in the blood corpuscles, 
and which have already been described, extend to the other 
organic parts, involving them in structural deteriorations, 
which are always dangerous, and are often ultimately fatal. 



PRIMARY EFFECTS ON VITAL FUNCTIONS. 

I remarked in my last lecture that the slow or chronic 
effect of alcoholic drink upon the body was to induce a 
series of stages analogous in all respects, except in period of 
duration, to the process of acute poisoning by the same 
agent. In the first prolonged stage there occur phenomena 



100 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

of disease which are as characteristic of the agency, when it 
is known, as they are deceptive when the agency is not 
known. 

The ultimate changes that follow the use of alcohol by 
those who indulge in it, in what is too often considered a 
temperate degree, are actual local changes within one or 
other of the vital organs. But before such actual deteriora- 
tion obtains there are usually other phenomena transitory 
in character yet unequivocal. I pointed out certain of these 
in the last lecture, but I did not specify them all. 

In addition to that irritation of mind and suffering " of 
wounds without cause," to which I then drew attention, an 
extreme emotional derangement is often produced. The 
afflicted man — and I fear I must say woman also — under 
this primary prolonged influence of alcohol becomes nervous 
and excitable, ready at any moment to cry or to laugh, with- 
out valid reasons for either act. The emotional centres 
are alternately raised and depressed in function by the 
poison, but after a time the depression overcomes the exhila- 
ration, and the impulse is to a maudlin sentimentality ex- 
tending even to tears. The slightest anxieties are then 
exaggerated, and there is experienced at the same time an 
indecision and deficiency of self-confidence which is doubly 
perplexing. When an act is done, when a letter, for in- 
stance, or other piece of business has been finished and 
despatched, an uneasy feeling of distrust is felt that perhaps 
some mistake has been made, which distrust passes rapidly 
into a sentiment that the thing cannot be helped; it is bad 
luck, but it must take its chance. In various other directions 
this distrust shows itself, and the worst of all is, that the 
very doubt prompts the desire for another application for 
relief to the evil that is the cause of the burden. A small 
dram more of the stimulant, not an overpowering draught 
that will cause quick and sure insensibility, but just a 
mouthful, that is the assumed remedy, and that is the 
certain promoter of the sorrow. 

We know now, as surely as if we could see within the 
body, what is the condition of the organs of the person 
afflicted in the manner thus defined. We are conscious that 
the vessels of the brain, of the lungs, of the liver, of the 



VI.] EFFECT ON VITAL FUNCTIONS. 101 

kidneys, of the stomach, are paralyzed, and are injected to 
full distention with blood. Some of these parts have 
actually been seen under this state, and the fact of the red 
injected condition directly demonstrated. 



Alcoholic Dyspepsia, 

Of all the systems of organs that suffer under this sus- 
tained excitement and paralysis, two are injured most, viz., 
the digestive and the nervous. The stomach, unable to 
produce in proper quantity the natural digestive fluid, and 
also unable to absorb the food which it may imperfectly 
digest, is in constant anxiety and irritation. It is oppressed 
with the sense of nausea ; it is oppressed with the sense of 
emptiness and prostration ; it is oppressed with a sense of 
distention ; it is oppressed with a loathing for food ; and it 
is teased with a craving for more drink. Thus there is 
engendered a permanent disorder which, for politeness' sake, 
is called dyspepsia, and for which different remedies are 
often sought but never found. Antibilious pills — whatever 
that expression may mean — Seidlitz powders, effervescing 
waters, and all that pharmacopoeia of aids to further indi- 
gestion, in which the afflicted who nurse their own diseases 
so liberally and innocently indulge, are tried in vain. I do 
not strain a syllable when I state that the worst forms of 
confirmed indigestion originate in the practice that is here 
explained. By this practice all the functions are vitiated, 
the skin at one moment is flushed and perspiring, at the next 
is pale, cold, and clammy, and every other secreting struc- 
ture is equally deranged. 



Nervous Derangements. 

The nervous structures follow, or it may be precede, the 
stomach in the order of derangement. We have not yet 
traced out with sufficient care the conditions of the centres 
of the organic chain of nerves, but we know that they are 
reduced in power ; and, in regard to those higher and reason- 



102 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

ing centres, the brain and its subsidiary parts, the spinal 
cord and voluntary nerves we are aware that they are 
supplied with Wood through vessels weakened, and in a con- 
dition either of undue tension or undue relaxation. More- 
over, the delicate membranes which envelope and immedi- 
ately surround the nervous cords are acted upon more readily 
by the alcohol than the coarser membranous textures of 
other parts, and thus a combined arrangement of evils 
affects the nervous matter. The perverted condition of the 
nervous centres gives rise to many striking phenomena, 
extending from them to the nervous cords and to the organs 
of sense. The irregular supply of blood to the retina causes 
temporary disturbances of vision, with appearances before 
the eyes of those sjjecksand small rounded semi-transparent 
discs, which are called by the learned muscce volitantes. 
From the imperfect tension of the arteries, the blood which 
rushes through them causes their dilatation, and in the 
bony canals of the skull an impingement is made upon the 
bony structure. Vibrations which extend to the neighbor- 
ing organs of hearing are thus produced, giving rise to 
sounds of a murmuring, ringing, or humming character, 
according to the modification of the arterial tension. 

The perverted condition of the membranous covering of 
the nerves gives rise to pressure within the sheath of the 
nerve, and to pain as a consequence. To the pain thus ex- 
cited the term " neuralgia " is commonly applied, or " tic " 
or " tic-douloureux ; " or if the large nerve running down the 
thigh be the seat of the pain, it is called " sciatica." Some- 
times this pain is developed as a toothache. It is pain 
commencing in nearly every instance at some point where a 
nerve is enclosed in a bony cavity, or where pressure is 
easily excited, as at the lower jaw-bone near the centre of 
the chin, or at the opening in front of the lower part of the 
ear, or at the opening over the eyeball in the frontal bone. 



Alcoholic Insomnia or Sleeplessness. 

Lastly on this head, the perverted state of the vessels of 
the brain itself, the unnatural tension to which they are 



VI.] EFFECT ON VITAL FUNCTIONS. 103 



subjected from the. stroke of the heart they are now so 
incompetent to resist, sets up in the end one telling, and of 
all I have yet named, most serious phenomenon, I mean 
insomnia, inability to partake of natural sleep. There is a 
theory held by some physiologists that sleep is induced by 
the natural contraction of the minute vessels of the brain, 
and by the exclusion, through that contraction, of the blood 
from the brain. I am myself inclined, for reasons I need 
not specify now, to consider this theory incorrect ; but it is 
nevertheless true that during natural sleep the brain is 
receiving a reduced supply of blood ; that when the vessels 
are filled with blood without extreme distention, the brain 
remains awake, and that when the vessels are engorged and 
over-distended, there is induced an insensibility which is not 
natural sleep, but which partakes of the nature of apoplexy. 
This sleep is attended with long and embarrassed breathing, 
blowing expirations, deep snoring inspirations, and uneasy 
movements of the body, even with convulsive motions : from 
such sleep the apparent sleeper awakes unrefreshed and un- 
ready for the labors of the day. The effect then of alcohol 
on the brain is to maintain the relaxation of vessels, ^o keep 
the brain charged with blood, and so to hold back the natural 
repose. Under this form of divergence from the natural 
life, the sleepless man lies struggling with unruly and un- 
connected trains of thought. He tries to force sleep by 
suppressing with a great effort all thought, but in an instant 
wakes again. At last the more he tries the less he succeeds, 
until the morning dawns. By that longtime the spirit that 
kept his cerebral vessels disabled and his heart in wild 
unrest having become eliminated, he is set free, and the 
coveted sleep follows. Or perhaps wearied of waiting for 
the normal results, he rises, and with an additional dose of 
the great disturber, or with some other tempting narcotic 
drug of kindred nature, such as chloral, he so intensifies the 
vascular paralysis as to plunge himself into the oblivion of 
congestion, with those attendant apoplectic phenomena which 
he hirusel/f hears not, but which, to those who do hear, are 
alarming in what they forebode, when their full meaning is 
appreciated. Connected with this sleep there is engendered 
in some persons a form of true epilepsy, which all the skill 



104 OJST ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

of physic is hopeless to cure, until the cause is revealed and 
removed. 

And now I think I have said everything that I have time 
to say respecting the general phenomena incident to this 
primary stage of slow alcoholic intoxication in those who, 
in the world's eye, as well as in their own, are temperate 
individuals — individuals who enjoy the choice things of this 
life heartily ; who understand a glass of wine, and who can 
take a good many glasses — or a good many little " goes " of 
spirit if that be all — but who are never known by friend or 
foe to be worse for anything they take ; who grow mellow as 
an apple under the mellowing cheer, but never fall, nor lose 
their power of taking less guarded companions safely home. 

ORGANIC DETERIORATIONS. 

The continuance of the effects of alcohol into a more 
advanced stage leads to direct disorganization of vital struc- 
tures. When once this stage has been reached not one 
organ of the body escapes the ravage. According to the 
build or the hereditary construction of the individual, how- 
ever, or according sometimes to what may be considered as 
a local accident, some particular organ undergoes a change 
which gives a specific character to the whole of the pheno- 
mena that are afterwards presented. We then say of the 
person in whom such change occurs that he is afflicted with 
such a particular disease, letting the general sink into the 
local manifestation. Many purely local modifications of 
structures and parts are in this manner induced in the 
blood, in the minute structure of the moving organs — the 
muscles, in the fixed vital organs, such as the brain, the 
lungs, the liver, the heart, the kidneys. In the blood the 
influence is exerted upon the plastic fibrine and upon the 
corpuscles ; in the brain, on the membranes at first, and 
afterwards on the nervous matter they enclose ; in the 
lungs, on the elastic, spongy, connective tissue, which is, 
strictly speaking, also membranous ; in the heart, on its 
muscular elements and membranes ; in the liver, primarily 
on its membranes ; in the kidneys, on their connective tissues 
and membranes. 



VI.] SPECIAL STRUCTURAL DETERIORATIONS. 105 



SPECIAL STRUCTURAL DETERIORATIONS. 

The organ of the body that perhaps the most frequently 
undergoes structural changes by the effects of alcohol is the 
liver. The capacity of this organ for holding active sub- 
stances in its cellular parts is one of its marked physiologi- 
cal distinctions. In instances of poisoning by arsenic, anti- 
mony, strychnine, and other poisonous compounds, we turn 
to the liver, in conducting our analyses, as if it were the 
central depot of the foreign matter. It is, practically, the 
same in respect to alcohol. The liver of the confirmed alco- 
holic is probably never free from the influence of the poison ; 
it is too often saturated with it. 

The effect of the alcohol upon the liver is upon the mi- 
nute membranous or capsular structure of the organ upon 
which it acts to prevent the proper dialysis and free secre- 
tion. The organ at first becomes large from the distention 
of its vessels, the surcharge of fluid matter and the thicken- 
ing of tissue. After a time there follow contraction of mem- 
brane, and slow shrinking of the whole mass of the organ in 
its cellular parts. Then the shrunken, hardened, roughened 
mass is said to be " hob-nailed," a common but expressive 
term. By the time this change occurs, the body of him in 
whom it is developed is usually dropsical in its lower parts, 
owing to the obstruction offered to the returning blood by 
the veins, and his fate is sealed. 

Now and then, in the progress to this extreme change and 
deterioration of tissue, there are intermediate changes. 
From the blood, rendered preternaturally fluid by the alco- 
hol, there may transude, through the investing membrane, 
plastic matter which may remain, interfering with natural 
function, if not creating active mischief. Again, under an 
increase of fatty substance in the body, the structure of the 
liver may be charged with fatty cells, and undergo what is 
technically designated fatty degeneration. I touch with the 
lightest hand upon these deteriorations, and I omit many 
others. My object is gained if I but impress you with the 
serious nature of the changes that, in this one organ alone, 

follow an excessive use of alcohol. 
km 



106 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

In the course of the early stages of deterioration of 
function of the liver from organic change of structure, 
another phenomenon, leading speedily to a fatal termination 
is sometimes induced. This new malady is called diabetes, 
and consists in the formation in enormous quantity within 
the body of glucose or grape-sugar, which substance has to 
be eliminated by dialysis, through the kidneys — often a 
fatal elimination. The injury causing this disease through 
the action of alcohol may possibly be traced back to an influ- 
ence upon the nervous matter ; but the appearance of the 
phenomenon is coincident with the derangement of the liver, 
and I therefore refer to it in this place. 

The kidney, in like manner with the liver, suffers deterio- 
ration of structure from the continued influence of alcoholic 
spirit. Its minute structure undergoes fatty modifications ; 
its vessels lose their due elasticity and power of contraction ; 
or its membranes permit to pass through them that colloidal 
part of the blood which is known as albumen. This last 
condition reached, the body loses power as if it were being 
gradually drained even of its blood. For this colloidal al- 
bumen is the primitively dissolved fluid out of which all the 
other tissues are, by dialytical processes, to be elaborated. 
In its natural destination it has to pass into and constitute 
every colloidal part. 

The lungs do not escape the evil influence that follows the 
persistent use of alcohol. They, indeed, probably suffer 
more than we at present know from the acute evils imposed 
by this agent. The vessels of the lungs are easily relaxed 
by alcohol ; and as they, of all parts, are most exposed to 
vicissitudes of heat and cold, they are readily congested 
when, paralyzed by the spirit, they are subjected to the 
effects of a sudden fall of atmospheric temperature. Thus, 
the suddenly fatal congestions of lungs which so easily be- 
fall the confirmed user of alcoholics during severe winter 



Alcoholic Phthisis / or, The Consummation of Drunkards. 

There are yet other and more prolonged, and more cer- 
tainly fatal mischiefs induced in the lungs by the persistent 



VI.] SPECIAL STRUCTURAL DETERIORATIONS. 107 

resort to alcohol ; and to one of these I would direct special 
attention. It is that deterioration of lung tissue to which, 
in the year 1864, I gave originally the name of alcoholic 
phthisis, or the consumption of drunkards. The facts were 
elicited at first in this manner. In a public hospital to which 
I acted as physician, I had brought before me, in the course 
of many years, two thousand persons who were stricken 
with consumption. I gathered the history of the lives of 
these, and of the reasons why they had passed into the all 
but hopeless malady from which they suffered. In my analy- 
sis of these histories I found that the leading causes of the 
malady were, in the great majority of instances, predisposi- 
tion from hereditary taint ; exposure to impure air ; want, 
or certain other allied causes. But the analysis being con- 
ducted rigidly, I discovered that, when every individual in- 
stance had been classified as due to the causes stated above, 
there remained thirty-six persons, or nearly two per cent., 
who were excluded from them, who appeared to suffer purely 
from the effects of alcohol, and in whom the consumption 
had been brought into existence by the use of alcohol. 

The added observations of eleven years, since the above- 
named fact was recorded in the Social Science Review, as a 
new fact in the history of the disease, have only served to 
prove, in the minds of other men as well as my own, the 
truth of the record. 

The persons who succumb to this deterioration of struc- 
ture induced by alcohol are not the exceedingly young, 
neither are they the old. They are usually over twenty- 
eight and under fifty-five. The average age may be taken as 
forty-eight. They are persons of whom it is never expected 
that their death will be from consumption ; and they are 
generally males. They are probably considered very healthy ; 
— men who can endure anything, sit up late at night, run the 
extreme of amusements, and yet get through a large amount 
of business. They sleep well, eat pretty well, and drink 
very well. They are often men of excellent build of body, 
and of active minds and habits. They are not a class of 
drinkers of strong drinks who sleep long, take little exercise, 
and grow heavy, waxy, pale — 

u Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights." 



108 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

On the contrary, they take moderate rest, and see as much 
as they can. Neither in the ordinary sense are they drunk- 
ards : they may never have been intoxicated in the whole 
course of their lives ; but they partake freely of any and 
every alcoholic drink that comes in their way, and they bear 
alcohol with a tolerance that is remarkable to observers. 
They are hard drinkers as distinguished from sots. Beer 
is to them as water, wine is weak ; the only thing that upsets 
them is stiff grog in relays, or a mixture of spirituous drinks 
carried to the extent of what they call, in grim joke — in 
which death surely joins — " piling the agony." 

As a rule these cannot live in what they consider to be 
comfort without a daily excess of alcohol, which excess must 
needs be renewed on emergencies, if there be greater amount 
of work to be done, less sleep to be secured, or more life to 
be lived. 

As specimens of animal build these persons are often 
models of organic symmetry and power. In fact they resist 
the enemy they court for so long a time because of the per- 
fection of their organization. More than half of those whom 
I have seen stricken down with alcoholic phthisis have said 
that they had never had a day's illness in their lives before ; 
but questioned closely, it was found that none of them had 
actually been quite well. Some of them had suffered from 
gout ; others from rheumatism or neuralgia. They had felt 
severely any depression such as that which arises from a 
cold, and if they had been subjected suddenly to caiises of 
excitement or exhaustion, they had detected, without actu- 
ally realizing its full meaning, that their balance of power 
against weakness was reduced, that the end of the beam 
called strength was rising, and that an extra quantity of 
alcohol w T as required to bring back equilibrium. As a rule 
men of this class are thoughtless of their own health and 
their own prospects, for they have an abundant original 
store of energy. They are designated as " happy-go-lucky " 
men, or as men who " always fall on their feet," which 
truly they do, but not without injury. 

The countenance of the alcoholic consumptive differs from 
that which is usually considered the countenance of the con- 
sumptive person, and equally from that which all the world 



VI.] SPECIAL STRUCTURAL DETERIORATIONS. 109 

adjudges as belonging to the man who indulges freely in 
strong drink. Who does not remember the wan, pale, 
sunken cheek of the youth on whom ordinary consumption 
has set its mark? And who, again, does not recall the 
fades alcoholica — the blotched skin, the purple-red nose, the 
dull, protruding eye, the vacant stare of the confirmed sot? 
The alcoholic consumptive has none of these characteristics. 
His face is the best part of him in all his history. When 
his muscles have lost their power, and his clothes hang 
loosely on his shrunken limbs, he is still of fair proportion 
in the face ; he has little pallor, and he is expressive in 
feature, so that his friends are apt to be deceived and to 
believe that there must be hope for his recovery, even 
when he is beyond every hope. I remember being actually 
taken aback on one occasion on finding, in a man who seemed, 
from his face, to be in perfect health, complete destruction 
of his lungs from the encroachments of disease ; and I can- 
not be surprised, therefore, that others, less informed, should 
share in such an imperception of danger when it is close at 
hand. Nobody, in a word, " pities the looks " of these 
sufferers, and good eyes are necessary to learn that nity is 
called for. 

The phenomena are not always developed at a time when 
the sufferer from them is indulging most freely in alcohol. 
On the contrary, it is by no means uncommon that the habit 
of excessive indulgence has been stopped for some time 
previously to their development. The reasons assigned by 
the patients for abstinence vary. One man may have been 
strongly advised by his friends to desist, or may himself 
have undergone a certain measure of reform ; another has 
been led by the reading or hearing of arguments on temper- 
ance ; a third, by want of means to obtain the indulgence ; 
but by' far the larger number tell you that a time came when 
the desire for so much drink did not occur to them. They 
will state that they tried the round of the various spirits, but 
found that none agreed with them as before, so that at last 
they were driven to rely on beer as the only drink they 
cared for. We read all this off clearly enough from a 
physiological point of view. We see that, in fact, the body 
has been resisting the alcohol ; that it could not do away 



110 OJS ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

with it as it did when all the excreting organs were in their 
full prime ; and that those drinks only can be borne in 
which the amount of alcohol is least. But the sufferer does 
not comprehend the fact, and therefore he not ^infrequently 
concludes that his increasing languor and debility are due to 
the necessary withdrawal of the stimulus on which he seems 
f o have been actually feeding during the greater part of his 
life. 

The signs which first indicate failure of health are 
usually those of acute pleurisy. There is pain in the side, 
quick, sharp, starting. The term a stitch" in the side is 
commonly applied to this pain, and is expressive enough. 
After a time the pain becomes continuous, and when it sub- 
sides, suppressed breathing, or difficulty of filling the chest, 
is at once felt and recognized. This difficulty is due to the 
circumstance that a portion of lung has become adherent to 
the inner surface of the chest. The next sign indicating 
that the disease (consumption) is present, is, usually, vomit- 
ing of blood. In two-thirds of the examples to which my 
attention has been directed this has been the sign that has 
first caused serious alarm, and it is commonly on such event 
that the physician is called in, who examines the chest with 
the stethoscope, and finds too often a condition that is hope- 
less. From the appearance of that sign all is — down, down, 
down towards the grave. 

There is no form of consumption so fatal as that from 
alcohol. Medicines affect the disease very little, the most 
judicious diet fails, and change of air accomplishes but slight 
real good. The sick man with this consumption may linger 
longer on the highway to dissolution than does his younger 
companion, but there is this difference between them, that 
the younger companion may possibly find a by-path to com- 
parative health, while the other never leaves it, but strug- 
gles on straight to the fatal end. In plain terms, there is 
no remedy whatever for alcoholic phthisis. It may be de- 
layed in its course, but it is never cured, and not unfrequently 
instead of being delayed it runs on to a final termination 
more rapidly than is common in any other type of the 
disorder. 

The origin of this series of changes from alcohol is again 



VI.] SPECIAL STBTJCTURAL DETERIORATIONS. Ill 

from the membranes. The course of it is through the mem- 
branous tissues. The vessels give way after a severe con- 
gestive condition, and blood is exuded, or extravasated into 
the lung. These conditions lead to the destruction of the 
substance of the pulmonary organs, upon which, and upon 
the organic changes that follow such destruction, the acute 
symptoms of the malady under consideration, become quickly 
and fatally pronounced. 



Alcoholic Disease of the Heart, 

The heart, not less than the rest of the vital parts, is sub- 
jected to deterioration of structure from alcohol. iWe need 
not wonder at this when we recall the strain to which it is 
subjected by the agent, the excess of work it is made to per- 
form. I touched on the mechanical evils that befall the 
heart from these circumstances in my last lecture, and the 
structural evils which I have now to specify are not less 
grave. The membranous structures which envelop and line 
the organ are changed in quality, are thickened, rendered 
cartilaginous, and even calcareous or bony. Then the valves, 
which are made up of folds of membrane, lose their supple- 
ness, and what is called valvular disease is permanently es- 
tablished. The coats of the great blood-vessel leading from 
the heart, the aorta, share, not unfrequently, in the same 
changes of structure, so that the vessel loses its elasticity 
and its power to feed the heart by the recoil from its dis- 
tention, after the heart, by its stroke, has filled it with 
blood. 

Again, the muscular structure of the heart fails, owing to 
degenerative changes in its tissue. The elements of the 
muscular fibre are replaced by fatty cells ; or if not so re- 
placed are themseWes transferred into a modified muscular 
texture in which the power of contraction is greatly reduced. 

Those who suffer from these organic deteriorations of the 
central and governing organ of the circulation of the blood 
learn the fact so insidiously, it hardly breaks upon them until 
the mischief is far advanced. They are, for years, conscious 
of a central failure of power from slight causes, such as over- 



112 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 



exertion, trouble, broken rest, or too long abstinence from 
food. They feel what they call " a sinking," but they know 
that wine or some other stimulant will at once relieve the 
sensation. Thus they seek to relieve it until at last they 
discover that the remedy fails. The jaded, over- worked, 
faithful heart will bear no more ; it has run its course, and, 
the governor of the blood stream broken, the current either 
overflows into the tissues, gradually damming up the courses, 
or under some slight shock or excess of motion ceases at 
the centre. 

Other Organic Changes. 

In the eyeball certain colloidal changes take place from the 
influence of alcohol, the extent of which have as yet been 
hardly thought of, certainly not in any degree studied, as in 
future they will be. We have learned of late years that the 
crystalline lens, the great refracting medium of the eyeball, 
may, like other colloids, be rendered dense and opaque, by 
processes which disturb the relationship of the colloidal 
substance and its water. By this means even the lens of the 
living eye can be rendered opaque, and the disease called 
cataract can be artificially produced. Sugar and many salts 
in excess, in the blood, will lead to this perversion of struc- 
ture, and after a long time alcohol acting in the manner of 
salt is capable, in excess, of causing the same modification of 
the eyeball. Moreover, alcohol injures the delicate nervous 
expanse upon which the image of all objects we look at is 
first impressed. It interferes with the vascular supply of 
this surface, and it leads to changes of structure which are 
indirectly destructive to the perfect sense of sight. 

In yet another mode alcohol perverts the animal mechan- 
ism. By some as yet obscurely definable interference with 
the natural transmutation of the colloidal substances into 
saline or crystalloidal, it gives rise to the production of an 
excess of some salines which appear in the fluid renal secre- 
tion. These saline matters accumulated in the blood from 
inability of the excreting organs to dispose of them, are di- 
rectly injurious, and exist as possible causes for the promo- 
tion of cataractous changes in the crystalline lens and of 



VI.] SPECIAL STRUCTURAL DETERIORATIONS. 113 

varied changes in other of the colloidal tissues and mem- 
branes. They are also a cause of a disease local in character 
produced by the aggregation of the saline products, particle 
by particle, into a compact mass like a stone, or to what is 
technically called calculus. In writing the history of one of 
the districts of England in which this disease is very preva- 
lent, I expressed many /ears ago the view that alcoholic 
indulgence was one of the most telling agencies in the pro- 
duction of the malady. I have seen nothing since that would 
lead me to alter that statement. 



Organic Nervous Lesions from Alcohol. 

Lastly, the brain and spinal cord, and all the nervous 
matter become, under the influence of alcohol, subject, like 
other parts, to organic deterioration. The membranes en- 
veloping the nervous substance undergo thickening; the 
blood-vessels are subjected to change of structure, by which 
their resistance and resiliency is unimpaired ; and the true 
nervous matter is sometimes modified, by softening or shrink- 
ing of its texture, by degeneration of its cellular structure, 
or by interposition of fatty particles. 

These deteriorations of cerebral and spinal matter give 
rise to a series of derangements, which show themselves in 
the worst forms of nervous disease — epilepsy ; paralysis, local 
or general ; insanity. 

But not a single serious nervous lesion from alcohol ap- 
pears without its warning. As a man who, when drinking 
at the table, is warned, by certain unmistakable indications, 
that the wine is beginning to take decisive effect on his power 
of expression and motion, so the moderate user of alcoholics 
is duly apprised that he is in danger of a more permanent 
derangement. He is occasionally conscious of a failing 
power of speech ; in writing or speaking he loses common 
words. He is aware that after fatigue his limbs are unnatu- 
rally weary and heavy, and he is specially conscious that a 
sudden fall of temperature lowers too readily his vital ener- 
gies. The worst sign of impending nervous change is mus- 
cular instability, irrespective of the will ; that is to say, an 



114 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

involuntary muscular movement whenever the will is off 
guard. This is occasionally exhibited by sudden muscular 
starts which pass almost like electrical shocks through the 
whole of the body ; but it is more frequently and positively 
shown in persistent muscular movements and starts at the 
time of going to sleep. The volition then is resigned to 
overpowering slumber, and natural 1 / all muscular movement, 
except the movement of the heart and of tne breathing, 
should rest with the will. But now this beautiful order is 
disturbed. In the motor centres of the nervous organization 
the foreign agent is creating disturbance of function. The 
fact is communicated to the muscles by the nervous fibres, 
and the active involuntary start of the lower limbs rouses 
the sleeper in alarm. Ignorant of the import of these mes- 
sages of danger, the habitual user of alcoholics continues too 
frequently on his way, until he finds the agitated limbs un- 
steady, wanting in power of co-ordinated movement — par- 
alyzed. 

Deeply though lamentably interesting as these phenomena 
from alcohol are, I must leave them here, omitting many 
others equally significant and equally plain, when they are 
once pointed out, even to the unprofessional mind. Let it 
be understood that in each description I have recorded only 
what alcohol can physically do to the animal economy. It 
is not always the cause of all or any of these phenomena. 
They may be induced by other influences and other agents, 
but it is an agency capable of effecting them, and it is 
actively employed in the work. 



ON SOME OF THE MENTAL PHENOMENA INDUCED BY ALCOHOL. 

The purely physical action of alcohol has been so far 
treated upon in the preceding pages. To that must now be 
added a few sentences on the influence this agent exerts 
over the mental functions. Of course such influence is 
actually manifested by and through physical means, but as 
yet these are not sufficiently clear to enable us to trace out 
the mental aberration through the physical process that has 
led to it. It is better therefore and simpler to treat the 



VI.] MENTAL PHENOMENA OF ALCOHOL. 115 

present subject in the mere abstract, passing from the agent 
to its results, without reference to the intermediate line of 
connection between cause and effect. These mental phe- 
nomena in the chronic phase, correspond to the phenomena 
which belong to the second and third stages of acute alco- 
holic intoxication. 

Loss of Memory or Speech, 

One of the first effects of alcohol upon the nervous system 
in the way of alienation from the natural mental state, is 
shown in loss of memory. This extends even to forgetfulness 
of the commonest of things ; to names of familiar persons, 
to dates, to duties of daily life. Strangely too, this failure, 
like that which indicates, in the aged, the era of second 
childishness and mere oblivion, does not extend to the things 
of the past, but is confined to events that are passing. On 
old memories the mind retains its power ; on new ones it 
requires constant prompting and sustain men t. 

If this failure of mental power progress, it is followed 
usually with loss of volitional power. The muscles remain 
ready to act, but the mind is incapable of stirring them into 
action. The speech fails at first, not because the mechanism 
of speech is deficient, but because the cerebral power is 
insufficient to call it forth into action. The man is reduced 
to the condition of the dumb animal. Aristotle says grandly, 
animals have a voice ; man speaks. In this case the voice 
remains, the speech is lost ; the man sinks to the lower 
spheres of the living creation, over which he was born to 
rule. 

The failure of speech indicates the descent still deeper to 
that condition of general paralysis in which all the higher 
faculties of mind and will are powerless, and in which 
nothing remains to show the continuance of life except the 
parts that remain under the dominion of the chain of organic 
or vegetable nervous matter. Our asylums for the insane 
are charged with these helpless specimens of humanity. The 
membranes of the nervous centres of thought and volition 
have lost, in these, the dialyzing function. In some instances, 
though less frequently than might be supposed, the nervous 



116 OUT ALCOHOL. [Lectuke 

matter itself is modified, visibly, in texture. The result is 
the complete wreck of the nervous mechanism, the utter 
helplessness of will, the absolute dependence upon other 
hands for the very food that has to be borne to the mouth. 
The picture is one of breathing death ; of final and perpetual 
dead intoxication. 

Dipsomania. 

A second effect of alcohol on the mental organization is 
the production of that craving for its incessant supply to 
which we give the name of dipsomania. In those who are 
affected with this form of alcoholic disease, a mixed mad- 
ness and sanity is established, in which the cunning of the 
mind alone lives actively, with the vices that ally themselves 
to it. The arrest of nervous function is partial, and does 
not extend to the motor centres so determinedly as to those 
of the higher reasoning faculties. But the end, though it 
may be slow, is certain, and the end is, as a rule, that 
general paralysis which I have just described. The dipso- 
maniac is, however, capable of recovery, within certain 
limits, on one and only one condition, that the cause of his 
disease be totally withheld. 



Mania a Potu. 

The effect of alcohol on the mental functions is shown in 
yet another picture of modern humanity writhing Under its 
use. I mean in the form of what may be called intermit- 
tent indulgence to dangerous excess. This form of disease 
has been named the mania a potu, and it is one of the most 
desperate of the alcoholic evils. The victims of this class 
are not habitual drunkards or topers, but at sudden intervals 
they madden themselves with the spirit. They repent, re- 
form, get a new lease of life, relapse. In intervals of repen- 
tance they are worn with remorse and regret ; in the inter- 
vals of madness they are the terrible members of the com- 
munity. In their furious excitement they spread around 
their circle the darkness of desolation, fear, and despair. 



VI.] TRANSMITTED DISEASE. 117 

Their very footsteps carry dread to those who, most help- 
less and innocent, are under their fearful control. They 
strike their dearest friends ; they strike themselves. Re- 
taining sufficient nervous power to wield their limbs, yet 
not sufficient to guide their reason, they become the danger- 
ous alcoholic criminals, whom our legislators, fearing to 
touch the cause of their malady, would fain try to cure by 
scourge and chain. 

To us physiologists these " maniacs a potu " are men 
under the experiment of alcohol, with certain of their brain 
centres (which I could fairly define if the present occasion 
were befitting) paralyzed, and with a broken balance, there- 
fore, of brain power, which we, with infinite labor and much 
exactitude, have learned to understand. Our remedy for 
such, aberration of nervous function, if we were legisla 
tors, would be simple enough. We should not whip the 
maniac back again to the drink ; we should try to break up 
the evil by taking the drink from the maniac. But then we 
are only physiologists. We have nothing to do with that 
£117,000,000 of invested capital, and we are not practical 
in reference to it. 

TRANSMITTED DISEASE. 

The most solemn fact of all bearing upon mental aberra- 
tions produced by alcohol, and upon the physical not less 
than upon the mental, is, that the mischief inflicted on man 
by his own act and deed cannot fail to be transferred to 
those who descend from him, and who are thus irresponsi- 
bly afflicted. Amongst the many inscrutable designs of 
nature none is more manifest than this, that physical vice, 
like physical feature and physical virtue, descends in line. 
It is, I say, a solemn reflection for every man and every 
woman, that whatever we do to Ourselves so as to modify 
our own physical conformation and mental type, for good or 
for evil, is transmitted to generations that have yet to be. 

Not one of the transmitted wrongs, physical or mental, 
is more certainly passed on to those yet unborn than the 
wrongs which are inflicted by alcohol. We, therefore, who 
live to reform the present age in this respect, are stretching 



118 ON ALCOHOL. [Lecture 

forth our powers to the next ; to purify it, to beaiitify it, 
and to lead it towards that millennial happiness and blessed- 
ness, which, in the fulness of time, shall visit even the 
earth, making it, under an increasing light of knowledge, a 
garden of human delight, a Paradise regained. 



SUMMARY. 

In summary of what has passed, I may be briefness itself. 

This chemical substance, alcohol, an artificial product 
devised by man for his purposes, and in many things that 
lie outside his organism a useful substance, is neither a food 
nor a drink suitable for his natural demands. Its application 
as an agent that shall enter the living organization is prop- 
erly limited by the learning and skill possessed by the 
physician, a learning that itself admits of being recast and 
revised in many important details, and perhaps in prin- 
ciples. 

If this agent do really for the moment cheer the weary, 
and impart a flush of transient pleasure to the unwearied 
who crave for mirth, its influence (doubtful even in these 
modest and moderate degrees) is an infinitesimal advantage, 
by ^he side of an infinity of evil for which there is no com- 
pensation, and no human cure. 



[It is quite evident that it would not be just to call upon Dr. 
Richardson to crowd more into six lectures than lie has put into 
these, yet he has not been able to touch upon anything like all 
the topics which would have been interesting in this discussion, 
no? has he been able to answer all the objections which would, and 
do very naturally, arise in the minds of intelligent, unprejudiced, 
and fair-minded men. It is important that this discussion be sus- 
tained in the same scientific, dignified, and fair manner in which 
Dr. Richardson has begun and thus far continued it. The objec- 
tions to temperance views, raised* by fair-minded men, must be 
fairly treated and removed. Assertions, vehement declamations, 
and the most earnest exhortations are not sufficient for the times, 
and to the satisfying of many men. But in scientific truth there 
is a power over most thoughtful men that will control their belief 
and their action ; at least, it will in the end control society. 



VI.] SUMMARY. 119 

Persons will ask, ' ' How can people live to be ninety and a hun • 
dred years old, using alcoholics all their life, if they are so very 
detrimental to the tissues as Dr.. Richardson says ? " 

They will ask, ' ' Why, if doctors use alcoholics when we are 
sick, may we not advise ourselves to use a little of the same when 
we are a little unwell ? " 

They will ask, "Is not the injury produced by alcoholics to be 
traced, not to their proper use, but to their abuse ? May not any 
good thing, even the best of food, be used in such quantity as to be 
a poison ? " 

They say, "If any one finds that, from constitutional or other 
reasons, alcoholics are not good for him, why does he not let them 
alone ? We can drink or let it alone, as we please ; why cannot he 
do the same? " 

They will say, "Although not a food, may it not be a proper 
stimulus in very small- quantities, such as we use ? It appears to 
aid our digestion," etc. 

All these points, these queries, these doubts, must be answered 
by a painstaking comprehension of the facts in the first place, and 
the setting them forth plainly and interestingly, as Dr. Richardson 
has done those matters which he has so admirably and conclusively 
discussed.] 



APPENDIX. 



121 



APPENDIX. 



TABLE I. 

LIST OF SUBSTANCES THAT WILL PRODUCE ANAESTHETIC SLEEP. 



Nitrous oxide gas 

Carbonic oxide gas 

Carbonic acid gas 

Bisulphide of carbon 

Light carburetted hydrogen (hy- 
dride of methyl or marsh gas) 

Methylic alcohol 

Methylic ether gas 

Chloride of methyl gas 

Bichloride of methylene 

Terchloride of formyl, or chloro- 
form 

Tetra-chloride of carbon 



Heavy carburetted hydrogen gas 
{olefiant gas or ethylene) 

Ethylic or absolute etcher 

Chloride of ethyl 

Bichloride of ethylene (Dutch 
liquid) 

Bromide of ethyl, or hydrobromic 
ether 

Hydride of amyl 

Amylene 

Benzol 

Turpentine spirit 



TABLE II. 

ALCOHOLS. 

Elementary Composition. 

Methylic or Protylic (wood spirit) C H 3 HO 

Ethylic or Deutylic (common alcohol) C 2 H 5 HO 

Propylic or Trilylic C 3 H 7 HO 

Butylic or Tetrylic C 4 H 9 HO 

Amylic or Pentylic (potato spirit, fusel oil) C 6 H n HO 

Hexylic C 6 Hi 3 HO 

Heptylic or CEnanthic C 7 Hi 5 HO 

Octylic C 8 H17 HO 

Decatylic Cio H 2 i HO 

Cetylic Ci 6 H 33 HO 

Melylic C 3 o H fl i HO 

6 



122 



APPENDIX, 



Composition. 


c 


H s 


c, 


H ft 


c 3 


H 7 


c 4 


H 9 


c 5 


H 12 


c 6 


H13 


c 7 


H15 


c 8 


H 17 


OlO 


H 2 i 


d. 


H33 


C30 


H 6 i 



TABLE III. 

RADICALS OF ALCOHOLS. 

Old name. New name. 

Methyl Protylen. 

Ethyl Deutylen. 

Propyl Tritylen. 

Butyl Tetrylen. 

Amyl Pentylen. 

Hexyl Hexylen. 

Heptyl Heptylen. 

Octyl Octylen. 

Decatyl — 

Cetyl — 

Melyl — 



TABLE IV. 

ALCOHOLS. 



Name. 



Old. 

Methylic . 
Ethylic. .. 
Butylic. . . 
Amy lie . . . 



Protylic. . 
Deutylic. 
Tetrylic . 
Pentylic . 



Chemical 
composition. 


Vapor 
density. 




H 2 =l 


C H 4 


16 


C 2 H 6 


23 


C4 H10 


37 


C 5 H 12 


44 



Specific 
gravity. 



Water KJOO. 

814 at o" C 
792 " 
803 " 
811 4 < 



Boiling 
point. 



Cen. 
60 

78 
110 
132 



Fah. 
140 

172 
230 
270 



TABLE V. 



Aldehydes. 



Methylic C H 4 O Formaldehyde .. C H 2 O 
Ethylic . C 2 H 6 O Aldehyde C 2 H 4 O 

Propylic. C 3 H 8 O Propionaldehyde C 3 H G O 
Butylic. . C 4 H 10 O ' Butylaldehyde . . C 4 H 8 O 
Arnylic. . C 5 Hi 2 O ! Valeraldehyde. . C 5 Hi O 



Formic... C H 2 3 

Acetic C 2 H 4 2 

Proponic. . C 3 H 6 O • 
Butyric. . . C 4 H 8 2 
Valerianic. C 5 Hi O 2 



APPENDIX. 123 



II. REFERENCES TO WORDS AND DERIVATIONS. 



While the delivery of these Lectures was in progress, I received 
from John F. Stanford, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., a philological scholar, 
whose dictionary of Anglicized foreign words and phrases will, it is 
to be hoped, soon appear — many very useful and interesting notes 
relating to derivations of words and terms respecting alcohol. By 
his kind permission I add a few of his notes in this place. 

Alcohol. — The best Arabic scholars write the word Al-Kool, though 
there is no word in Arabic which corresponds to the meaning as- 
signed to it in the English language. 

Aqua Vitce. — This word, Mr. Stanford reminds me, is used by 
Shakspeare. 

{Nurse.) " G-ive me some aqua vitas. 1 ' — Romeo and Juliet, Act iii., sc. 2. 

" I would as sooa trust an Irishman with my aqua vitas bottle.' 1 — Merry Wives oj 
Windsor. 

Aqua vitas was, Mr. Stanford believes, made before any other 
spirit, viz., about 1260 A.D., by the monks of Ireland, who got the 
secret from Spain, the Spaniards having got it from the Moors, and 
the Moors (Arabs) from the Chinese. Whiskey, he thinks, was pos- 
sibly the oldest term applied to aqua vitas. The etymon is usige- 
biatha, which in Erse means aqua vitas, corrupted afterwards to 
usquebaugh. This compound term shared the fate of many other 
words, and was abbreviated to usige, whence whiskey. 

Arrac. — Hindustane for an alcohol, distilled from palm-tree juice 
and several other juices : it is the aqua vitas of the East. The word 
is corrupted to Raki in Russia, Turkey, and Germany, or sometimes 
to Rakk. The intoxicating liquor made from the juice of the palm- 
tree, is called in India and Ceylon, Toddee, whence the Scotch term 
1 ' Toddy. " There is a coarse Arrac called Pariah Arrac, very generally 
consumed throughout India, which is rendered narcotic by addition 
of extract of Indian hemp. The importation of Arrac or Rack was 
regulated by 11 Geo. I., c. 30. It was imported to make punch, so 
called Rack punch. 

Gin. — This term Mr. Stanford traces from French ginevre, abbre- 
viated from the Italian ginepro, Latin jitniperus, English juniper, 
the berries of the juniper being used in the distillation of the spirit 
as a flavoring substance. 

Gin-sing. — This is the term used by the Chinese for the famous 



124 APPENDIX. 

Mandrake narcotic reputed to be worth its weight in gold for medi- 
cinal purposes, and at the head of their pharmacopoeia. 

Metheglin. — Was the name of a fermented honey-drink of Corn- 
wall, an intoxicating narcotic beverage. 

Potheen or Poteen — Irish, Poitin. — A small pot or still, the name 
of the liquor being derived from the still in which it was made. 
Poitiu is probably from the Latin potio, a drink. 

Bum. — Mr. Stanford believes the word u rum" to be an abbrevi- 
ation, by aphseresis, of sacca-rum, not an original native name. 



THE END. 



ON 

ALCOHOL: 

A COURSE OF SIX CANTOR LECTURES DELIVERED 
BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF ARTS. 

BY 

BENJAMIN W. RICHARDSON, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., 

FELLOW OF/ THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, 
AND HONORARY PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL LITERARY FUND. 

EDITED WITH NOTES 



T. S. LAMBERT, M.D., A.M., LL.D., 

Author of " Physiology, Anatomy and Hygiene,'''' "Biometry" '■New Scheme of 

Functions" " Lectures upon the Constitution of Alcohol, its Physiological 

and Pathological Effects upon the Hitman Organs," etc., etc. 



NEW YORK. 
UNITED STATES PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

207 East Twelfth Street. 

FOR SALE WHOLESALE AND RETAIL AT ALL BOOKSTORES, AND AT 

THE OFFICE OF "THE LIVING.. ISSUE," .210 EIGHTH AVE. 



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